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diff --git a/100 things.txt b/100 things.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..2628ceb --- /dev/null +++ b/100 things.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +title: Own 100 Things and that's it +date: 20140726 21:33 +tags: #minimalism +--- + +I think the main goal here is to simply be cognizant of what you own, be aware for your footprint on the world, be aware of your stuff and think critically about its necessity. Then try to lighten your footprint, travel lighter through the world + +Exactly how many things you own is largely irrelevant. That said, I feel pretty sad that I own so many things I have yet to list anything that isn't in view of my desk when I first typed this. + +My list, incomplete by a long margin: + +1. Macbook Pro 15 inch +2. EeePC 1005HA +3. 2 TB backup drive +4. 500 GB backup drive +5. 12 string guitar +6. 6 string guitar +7. Cherwick painting +11. Lumix GF1 camera + lens diff --git a/1994 backpacker lightweight.txt b/1994 backpacker lightweight.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..685dab4 --- /dev/null +++ b/1994 backpacker lightweight.txt @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +Still Green from the two days spent crashing around inside the hull of the ship, we swayed down the grated gangplank under a dry sun and stepped onto Africa. We were beneath large packs, carrying everything we thought we might need to cross the mountains and deserts and fields and forests: frying pan, tent, stove, clothes, camera, stuff. Originally we had even more. We left our prairie hometown on the other side of the world with ropes and ice axes and carabiners, intending to climb mountains, but after walking the width of rain-black Belgium, we ditched them. That was the first cut. + +We were in North Africa for more than a month. Along the way, we relieved ourselves of yet more baggage -- a series of cuts. It took us a week to cross Algeria. Eventually we made passage on a small boat that carried us across the Sicilian Channel to that rocky island. We camped in the mountains above the city of Palermo. One morning We hid our tent and packs and sleeping bags in the bushes and walked into the city. We wore our down jackets because it was still winter and a bit cool. + +Returning to camp in the night, we began to sense something, an anxious and uncomfortable strangeness in our bellies. Wild and scared, we suddenly raced through the forest, then saw the signs: a tent pole here, pot lid over there, other bright remnants of our camping gear strewn in the bushes in the moonlight. It was all gone. Thieves. + +When at last we believed what we saw, we stood above the Gulfo di Palermo, watching the lights of ships in a sea of black, and we raged and blasphemed the culprits. At dawn, +we strolled over the pine needles through the pillars of warm light, silently assessing. When I looked over at Mike, he was grinning. + +"Well, that was the last cut," he said. + +"We don't have a thing left." I reminded him. + +"Not true. Not true at all We have boots on our feet. Clothes on our backs.“ He suddenly leaped in the air and clicked his heels. + +“And our down coats," I said gaily, surprising myself. + +"Exactly. And our jackknives.” + +Then, not knowing why, we laughed hard, rolling like puppies in the soft duff in the yellow morning light in Sicily. By noon we had expanded our personal kits by a plastic cafeteria cup and metal soup spoon apiece. + +Thus equipped, we spent the next half year with little more. We went as far north as the Arctic Circle and as far east as Russia. We slept in our down coats at night and tied them around our waists during the day. During bad weather we slept under rocks or trees or cliffs or bushes, then moved fast in the morning to get warm. We drank water when we found it and ate cold food when we had it. Living this way, we hiked the Austrian Alps, climbed along the fjords of Norway, explored the North Sea above Holland, roamed the Black Forest of Germany, and traversed the perfumed valleys of France. + +That was almost two decades ago, when I was young enough to be brave. What I didn't know then but came to realize in hindsight was the incalculably rich fortune of our melodramatic misfortune. In the following years, "the cut“ metamorphosed from a simple event into words with special meaning into a backcountry creed, a doctrine based upon this beautiful thought: Less is more. + +There are only two principles of parsimony to wilderness travel. First, rigorously evaluate the true necessity of every item you intend to take, then pitch any that don't have unequivocal functionality. Second, once the select group of essentials is identified, search for each pieces lightest and most versatile incarnation. In both respects you must be ruthless. + +To steer through this process, think of your equipment as tools that help you explore the wilderness. And any carpenter knows the right tools are everything. You don't need +a sledgehammer to pound in a tack. You don't need a Bowie knife to part a bagel, and you don't need four T-shirts for one body. Try a little discipline. Test your frugality. Only if a tool is used every day is it worth carrying. Question the status quo. Clean your pot with sand and leave the scrubber at home. Do you really need camp slippers? Utter decadence! A book? Aren't the soon-vanished moments in the wilds entertainment enough? + +Last fall. 1 went on a four day trip into the Beartooth Wilderness of southwestern Montana. It was an indulgence in weightlessness -- this time by choice, and with all the right, light gear. I hiked only several hours each day, but covered eight to 10 miles in a stretch. The trip was luxurious. I scampered up to 10,000 feet, then scampered back down. I circumnavigated lakes, watched mountain goats, listened to pikas, smelled wildflowers, forded rivers, and watched the sky move itself from one side of the mountains to the other. + +I moved quickly and quietly because my pack was so light — 16 pounds. A lean, clean pack makes for a clear clean mind. When you carry a light pack you recall what skipping is. It's actually possible to skip along a trail if your pack is light, even at high altitude. Remember bounding front boulder to boulder to cross a stream as a youngster, ignorant of your youth but certain of your agility and ability, and certain that you would not fail in? And you didn't. With a light pack, you can do it +again. And you won't, again. + +Remember dancing across talus and rocks and not losing your balance as they slipped out from under your feet? Simply scampering on as graceful and as surefooted as a mountain goat. With a light pack, you can do that. + +With a light pack you glide rather than drag through the landscape. Indeed, a light pack means you can once again regain the primeval, swift-smooth gait of the animals you came to see -- wolves, deer, elk -- forgetting and forsaking the dreadful, doltish domesticated animals of your weighted-down world back borne. diff --git a/6 helpful reminders for the overwhelmed person.txt b/6 helpful reminders for the overwhelmed person.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..06d15e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/6 helpful reminders for the overwhelmed person.txt @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +title: 6 helpful reminders for the overwhelmed person +date: 20130917 16:02:24 +tags: #work #gtd #writing #business +--- + +[Source](http://www.raptitude.com/2013/10/6-helpful-reminders-for-the-overwhelmed-person/) + +1. The sky has fallen a thousand times already +2. Your problems are the same problems human beings have always had +3. Being overwhelmed comes from a breakdown of your thoughts about your life, not a breakdown of your life +4. It is mathematically unlikely that your problems are as bad as you think they are +5. Things change pretty quickly when you start doing things instead of thinking so much +6. It is most tempting to not do things when you most need to do things + +There is a tendency to freeze when things feel like they’re going off the rails, for two reasons. The first reason is that you are afraid to make things worse. But the bigger reason is that by making a decision to do something you are deciding to take responsibility for where you are, and that’s not a natural reflex for most of us. + +Believing another party is responsible is tempting because it lets you fantasize about a deus ex machina ending to your crisis, the timely swooping-in of the cavalry, which makes for a lame movie because it makes a fool of the protagonist, and never really happens in real life anyway. + +-- + +I fall prey to the last two all the time, particularly the dues ex machina fantasy, which stops me from pursuing what I need to do by offering a just wait and it will come fantasy -- which, albeit, sometimes does happen, but it's best to continue pursuing what you want, that is getting things done in that direction at least, even as you wait for the potentially unexpected.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/750 words.txt b/750 words.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..48cb7df --- /dev/null +++ b/750 words.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +title: 750 Words +date: 20140302 22:31:59 +tags: #writing + +seven hundred and fifty words, that's what they say you need to write before you really know what it is that you're writing. Could be. For me it's been so long since I really wrote, really wrote what I wanted to write that I have no idea what's going to come out. The truth is I sold my writing self out before I even knew that I didn't need to do that. And maybe I did need to do it, I wouldn't be here if I hadn't done it so there's that. + +But the thing is I'm not sure that matters a whole lot, I'm not entirely convinced I needed to come down this low to realize what now seems clear, I got suckered by the man so to speak. Not that I actually see it in those terms, more that I let myself down. I started writing only when they told me to write, only when I was getting paid, only when I had to and at that point I was finished. I dread writing, I have to force myself to stay here in the chair, to not get up and wander that house, not go find a cigarette somewhere as if that would somehow make it easier to write but that never worked, hasn't worked in years. The truth is that I'm out of practice, I need 750 words to warm up and I've got a lot to say so I've got to just keep pressing on keys, making the clackity noise and going. + +I came out here to write a novel because I decided that that was, or maybe I felt that that was what I ought to be doing and the music was getting in the way,. the cleverness of the words, the poetry and beat were getting in the way of the narrative, which was what I really wanted to chase, but I was afraid to do it. So moved out here to Athens to prove I could do something, to prove I wasn't afraid. But I still haven't followed the narrative. I got to AThens right around the time the internet started to pull us early adopters in, the tractor beam grabbed me and that became the narrative. True, I did write a novel somewhere in there, or most of one, but I never had the courage to finish it. Never forced myself to stay in the chair and finish what I started. It's easy to start things, so easy in fact that I start hundreds of things, but it takes real discipline, or real will or real something to keep yourself chained to that chair, to keep pressing the keys even when you want to give up, want to walk away, want to do something much simpler like build a website. So you abandon the narrative. + +But it's always there in your head. Those characters, you can see them in your mind, walking down the road, just their backs at first maybe, a white shirt waving across their backs as the wind blows over the world that is beginning to take shape. And then one day they turn around and you see the facial features, the texture of their skin, the jawline and the eyes, the endless depths of imaginary eyes. And you know how they will eventually get back to the boat, eventually sail down to the stilt city you have already sketched out in words. The will dock there, have adventures, set plots in motion, sail all the way around the world perhaps, sink just outside the harbor perhaps, one never knows these things, only sees the beginnings, the cast and the set, from there you have to start writing, you have to put the fingers to the keys and keep pounding until something happens. + +If you're anything like me you have to pound for quite some time. If you were to read a draft of this post you would have already slogged through nearly double the words you've had to slog through as it is. Sometimes it takes a long time to get that boat out of the harbor and you have to work your way there, fight almost. It's strange that, that feeling when you know you're circling around the point you want to get to, is that fear that stops you from diving right into it? Is it caution? Is it a desire to feel out the subject before you commit? But you have to commit. Maybe you commit and you fail. It happens to me all the time. In fact it's the only thing that happens to me, or at least it feels that way. But you can't get anywhere without committing. + +Granted there are times when you should commit and kill. How do you know when something sucks? I don't know? Two weeks from now I will think this entire rambling thing is an utter piece of shit and that I ought to be embarrassed to have put it out there and what's more I'll want to delete it. Does that mean it really sucks? Maybe. Maybe not, I'm not sure. + diff --git a/8th army.txt b/8th army.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..d9ba5c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/8th army.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +title: 8th army sodium pentothal experiments +date: 20140326 22:35:48 +tags: #bn-unseen +--- + +Supposedly the 8th Army air corp used sodium pentothal as a post mission therapy technique for bomb groups in England. Not sure where I heard that and a cursory Google search fails to turn up any evidence, but hey, there you go.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/Camping List 2.txt b/Camping List 2.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..8fca044 --- /dev/null +++ b/Camping List 2.txt @@ -0,0 +1,106 @@ +Camping List 2 + +- In Kitchen Box + * 2 cold drink cups + * 2 coffee mugs + * MSR Pots (2 w/ lids) + * Windscreen + * Stove + * Chef Knife + * French Press + * First Aid Kit + * Rope + * Shovel + * 1 freeze dried meal + * 2 bowls + * pot handle + * Utinsels + * 1 fork + * 2 spoons + * 2 knives + * 2 sharp knives + * 3 slotted serving spoons + * 1 turner + * quart size plastic baggies + * salt and pepper shakers + * scrubber sponge + * dish soap + * water proof matches + * lighter wand + * trash bag + * plastic bags (store kind) + * Insect Repellant (Off) + * Grill + +- In Mattress Bag + * Mattress + * Pump + * Charger + * Car Charger + * Fitted Sheet + * Sheet + +- In tent bag + * Tent + * Ground Cover + * Vestibule + * Rain Fly + * Stakes + +- In camp box (need to buy) + * Lighter Fluid + * Charcoal + * Gas Cans + +- MISC - need to pack + * Camp Chairs + * Pack-n-Plays + * Coffee maker + * Sleeping Bag/Blankets + * Water Bottles + * Water Jug + * Binoculars + * Tripod + * Camera + * pillows + * grill scrubber/brush + * skillets/pans + * sunscreen + * wipes + * toothbrush/toiletries + * medications + * sunglasses + * lip balm + * earplugs + * field guides + * cards/Phase 10 + * kite + * paper towels + * dish towels + +- Need to buy + * Plates http://www.rei.com/product/830755/rei-campware-plate + * 2 more bowls: http://www.rei.com/product/830753/rei-campware-bowl + * 3 more forks: http://www.rei.com/product/781526/rei-campware-fork + * 2 Headlamps: http://www.rei.com/product/829550/petzl-tikka-plus-2-headlamp + * 2 Wide mouth Nalgenes: http://www.rei.com/product/852355/rei-nalgene-wide-mouth-loop-top-water-bottle-32-fl-oz + * splash guard for corrinne: http://www.rei.com/product/729119/guyot-designs-splashguard-universal + * good rain jacket: http://www.rei.com/product/837221/arcteryx-alpha-sl-hybrid-jacket-mens + * Extra AA/AAA batteries + * Swiss Army Knife + * Sewing Kit + * cast iron cookware + * larger grill + * hachet + * small camp chairs + +- For Hiking + * Day Pack + * Compass + * Mirror + * Stuffsacks + * Moleskin + * Extra water bottles + * hiking boots + * child carrier packs + diff --git a/Camping List.txt b/Camping List.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..a8794bc --- /dev/null +++ b/Camping List.txt @@ -0,0 +1,126 @@ +Camping List + +tags: runx +date: October 17, 2013 3:29:29 PM +--- +Currently in Kitchen box: + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +gearlist + +stove +cooler +citronella candles +milk crate +egg holders + + + +Gear + +1. Sleeping Bag +2. Pad +3. Tent +4. Water Bottles (2 per person) +5. Compass +6. Mirror +7. Water Purifier +8. Iodine Tablets +9. Canteen +10. Rope +11. Shovel +12. Waterproof Matches +13. Lighter +14. Stuffsacks +15. Swiss Army Knife +16. Sheath Knife +17. Ground Sheets +18. Topographical Maps +19. Flashlight +20. Extra batteries +21. Moleskin +22. First Aid Kit +23. Plastic Baggies +24. Trash Bag +25. Camera (with extra film) +26. Sewing Kit +27. Insect Repellant +28. Day pack +29. Binoculars +30. Water Bag +31. Tripod + +Personal Gear + +1. Toothbrush +2. Toothpaste +4. Toilet Paper +5. Sunscreen +6. Chapstick + + +Clothing + +1. Two Pair of Shorts (one bathing suit) +2. Warm Pants +3. Two-Three T-shirts +4. Warm Shirt (wool or flanel) +5. Long Underwear +6. Raingear +7. Mittens +8. Hat +9. Underwear (2-3) +10. Normal Socks (1-2) pair +11. Hiking Socks (2 pair) +12. Liner Socks (2 pair) +13. Jacket +14. Boots +15. Shoes (after hiking) + +Cooking Gear + +1. Stove +2. Fuel Canister +3. Eye Dropper +4 Mess Kit +5. Utensils +6. Pots (2) +7. Bakepacker +8. Cups +8. Pan Scruber +10. Spices +11. Snacks and Extra food +12. Waterproof Matches +13. Lighter +14. Spatula + + +1. Boot Sealant +2. Pad for Stove +3. Warm Jacket +4. Warm Pants +5. Mittens +6. Gaitors +11. Ice Ax diff --git a/Reading List.txt b/Reading List.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac9bfa1 --- /dev/null +++ b/Reading List.txt @@ -0,0 +1,135 @@ +Reading List + +Birthright: People and Nature in the Modern World by Stephen R. Kellert +Jack London's The Road +Tenth of December Stories by George Saunders +Handbook to Higher Consciousness by Ken Keyes +The Low Country: A Naturalist's Field Guide to Coastal Georgia, the Carolinas, and North Florida by Mallory Pearce +Payback: Conspiracy to Destroy Michael Milken +The Situation and the Story: the Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick +Tripping the Bardo with Timothy Leary: My Psychedelic Love Story Joanna Harcourt-Smith +The Definitive Book of Body Language Barbara Pease +The Courtier and the Heretic by Matthew Stewart +The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Reader's Edition) +Harmonies of Heaven and Earth: Mysticism in Music from Antiquity to the Avant-Gardeby Joscelyn Godwin +Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Strife of Love in a Dreamnby Francesco Colonna (Author) , Joscelyn Godwin (Translator) +The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg +Letters of a Sufi Master +English, August By Upamanyu Chatterjee +Seasonal Adjustments By Adib Khan +How To Be Free Tom Hodgkinson +The Conquest of Happiness - Russell, Bertrand +Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe +Sun Tzu - The Art of War +7 habits of highly effective people +Work less play more" by Steven Catlin +The Secret History of Costaguana Juan Gabriel Vásquez +The Informers Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s +Conquistadora Esmeralda Santiago +Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit +Fail-Safe Investing - by Harry Browne +The Crowded Dance of Modern Life By Virginia Woolf +The Wisdom of Life by Arthur Schopenhauer +Arctic Dreams By Barry Lopez +Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder +Double Axe By Robinson Jeffers +The Importance Of Living Lin Yutang +John Jeremiah Sullivan’sPulphead +A Green History of the World by Clive ponting +The invasion of America Indians, colonialism and the cant of conquest by Francis Jennings +A scientific romance Ronald Wright +Travels With Herodotus Ryszard Kapuściński + +In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell +The Wisdom of Insecurity By Alan Watts +The House on Dream Street by Dana Sachs +The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh +The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria +Three Trapped Tigers by G. Cabrera Infante’s +The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years by Chingiz Aitmatov +Fear Drive My Feet by Peter Ryan +Gritos by Dagoberto Gilb +Bury Me Standing by Isabel Fonseca +Elif Shafak +Memed, My Hawk by Yashar Kemal +Birthright: People and Nature in the Modern World by Stephen R. Kellert +Social Bliss Considered By Peter Annet +Scoop, By Evelyn Waugh +Ask the Dust By John Fante +Imperium by Ryszard Kapuściński +TE Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom +Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety +Edward O Wilson, On Human Nature +Philip Hoare, The Whale +Helena Drysdale, Mother Tongues +Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis +Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe +Elisabeth Tova Bailey, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating +S J Perelman, The World of S J Perelman +Machado de Assis, Epitaph of a Small Winner +Flann O’Brien, At Swim Two-Birds +Flann O’Brien, The Third Policeman +Isaac Babel, Collected Short Stories +Borges, Other Inquisitions +Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude +Thomas Bernhard, Correction +Rudy Wurlitzer, Nog +Isaac B Singer, Gimpel the Fool +Bernard Malamud, The Assistant +Bernard Malamud, The Magic Barrel +Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man +Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, +Samuel Beckett entire +Max Frisch, I’m Not Stiller +Max Frisch, Man in the Holocene +Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales +Tommaso Landolfi, Gogol’s Wife +John Hawkes, The Lime Twig +John Hawkes, Blood Oranges +Susan Sontag, I, Etc. +Tillie Olsen, Tell Me a Riddle +Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces +Bellow, Henderson the Rain King +John Updike, The Coup +John Updike, Rabbit, Run +André Breton, Manifestos of Surrealism +Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation +Hugh Kenner, A Homemade World +Flaubert, Letters +Mamet, Sexual Perversity in Chicago +Joy Williams, The Changeling +Joe David Bellamy (ed.), The New Fiction +Tim O’Brien, Going After Cacciato +Amos Tutola, The Palm-Wine Drunkard +Ann Tyler, Searching for Caleb +Kenneth Koch, Thank You +John Ashbery, Rivers and Mountains +Wesley Brown, Tragic Magic +Roland Barthes, Mythologies +Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text +Ann Beattie, Falling in Place +William Gass, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country +Gass, Fiction and the Figures of Life +Gass, The World Within the Word +Mailer, Advertisements for Myself +Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange +Kobo Abe, The Box Man +Peter Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams +Peter Handke, Kaspar and Other Plays +André Breton, Nadja +John Barth, Chimera +Walker Percy, The Moviegoer, +Jayne Anne Phillips, Black Tickets +Peter Taylor, Collected Stories +Colette, The Pure and the Impure +John Cheever, Collected Stories +Leonard Michaels, I Would Have Saved Them if I Could +Max Apple, The Oranging of America +Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo +Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon +Carlos Fuentes, The Death of Artemio Cruz +Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting +Wayne C Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction + + + diff --git a/airport notes dubai.txt b/airport notes dubai.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..052a1c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/airport notes dubai.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +title: Airport Notes Dubai +date: 20061109 23:10:14 +tags: #storyidea #character #sketch + +German who built ships and wore a shirt with a graph paper pattern on it, white with criss-crossed blue pin stripes.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/apocalyptic daze.txt b/apocalyptic daze.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..cf73449 --- /dev/null +++ b/apocalyptic daze.txt @@ -0,0 +1,55 @@ +title: Apocalyptic Daze +date: 20140728 22:20:29 +tags: #art #apocalyptic #writing + +Interesting look as why we as a culture seems so obsessed with apocalyptic scenarios. Not sure I agree with some of it. It seems to be solely on the side of life imitating art when in fact I think there's a credible argument to be made in the other direction -- that it might be art's way of telling us life has gotten pretty bad. At the same time, the apocalypse never arrives it seems + +-- + +[source](http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_apocalyptic-daze.html) + +As an asteroid hurtles toward Earth, terrified citizens pour into the streets of Brussels to stare at the mammoth object growing before their eyes. Soon, it will pass harmlessly by—but first, a strange old man, Professor Philippulus, dressed in a white sheet and wearing a long beard, appears, beating a gong and crying: “This is a punishment; repent, for the world is ending!” + +We smile at the silliness of this scene from the Tintin comic strip _L’Étoile Mystérieuse_, published in Belgium in 1941. Yet it is also familiar, since so many people in both Europe and the United States have recently convinced themselves that the End is nigh. This depressing conviction may seem surprising, given that the West continues to enjoy an unparalleled standard of living. But Professor Philippulus has nevertheless managed to achieve power in governments, the media, and high places generally. Constantly, he spreads fear: of progress, of science, of demographics, of global warming, of technology, of food. In five years or in ten years, temperatures will rise, Earth will be uninhabitable, natural disasters will multiply, the climate will bring us to war, and nuclear plants will explode. Man has committed the sin of pride; he has destroyed his habitat and ravaged the planet; he must atone. + +My point is not to minimize the dangers that we face. Rather, it is to understand why apocalyptic fear has gripped so many of our leaders, scientists, and intellectuals, who insist on reasoning and arguing as though they were following the scripts of mediocre Hollywood disaster movies. + +Around the turn of the twenty-first century, a paradigm shift in our thinking took place: we decided that the era of revolutions was over and that the era of catastrophes had begun. The former had involved expectation, the hope that the human race would proceed toward some goal. But once the end of history was announced, the Communist enemy vanquished, and, more recently, the War on Terror all but won, the idea of progress lay moribund. What replaced the world’s human future was the future of the world as a material entity. The long list of emblematic victims—Jews, blacks, slaves, proletarians, colonized peoples—was likewise replaced, little by little, with the Planet, the new paragon of all misery. No longer were we summoned to participate in a particular community; rather, we were invited to identify ourselves with the spatial vessel that carried us, groaning. + +How did this change happen? Over the last half-century, leftist intellectuals have identified two great scapegoats for the world’s woes. First, Marxism designated capitalism as responsible for human misery. Second, “Third World” ideology, disappointed by the bourgeois indulgences of the working class, targeted the West, supposedly the inventor of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism. The guilty party that environmentalism now accuses—mankind itself, in its will to dominate the planet—is essentially a composite of the previous two, a capitalism invented by a West that oppresses peoples and destroys the earth. Indeed, environmentalism sees itself as the fulfillment of all earlier critiques. “There are only two solutions,” Bolivian president Evo Morales declared in 2009. “Either capitalism dies, or Mother Earth dies.” + +So the planet has become the new proletariat that must be saved from exploitation—if necessary, by reducing the number of human beings, as oceanographer Jacques Cousteau said in 1991. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, a group of people who have decided not to reproduce, has announced: “Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom. When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory.” The British environmentalist James Lovelock, a chemist by training, regards Earth as a living organism and human beings as an infection within it, proliferating at the expense of the whole, which tries to reject and expel them. Journalist Alan Weisman’s 2007 book _The World Without Us_ envisions in detail a planet from which humanity has disappeared. In France, a Green politician, Yves Cochet, has proposed a “womb strike,” which would be reinforced by penalties against couples who conceive a third child, since each child means, in terms of pollution, the equivalent of 620 round trips between Paris and New York. + +“Our house is burning, but we are not paying attention,” said Jacques Chirac at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. “Nature, mutilated, overexploited, cannot recover, and we refuse to admit it.” Sir Martin Rees, a British astrophysicist and former president of the Royal Society, gives humanity a 50 percent chance of surviving beyond the twenty-first century. Oncologists and toxicologists predict that the end of mankind should arrive even earlier than foreseen, around 2060, thanks to a general sterilization of sperm. In view of the overall acceleration of natural disorders, droughts, and pandemics, “we all know now that we are going down,” says the scholar Serge Latouche. Peter Barrett, director of the Antarctica Research Centre at New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington, is more specific: “If we continue our present growth path we are facing the end of civilization as we know it—not in millions of years, or even millennia, but by the end of this century.” + +One could go on citing such quotations forever, given the spread of the cliché-ridden apocalyptic literature. Environmentalism has become a global ideology that covers all of existence—not merely modes of production but ways of life as well. We rediscover in it the whole range of Marxist rhetoric, now applied to the environment: ubiquitous scientism, horrifying visions of reality, even admonitions to the guilty parties who misunderstand those who wish them well. Authors, journalists, politicians, and scientists compete in the portrayal of abomination and claim for themselves a hyper-lucidity: they alone see clearly while others vegetate in the darkness. + +The fear that these intellectuals spread is like a gluttonous enzyme that swallows up an anxiety, feeds on it, and then leaves it behind for new ones. When the Fukushima nuclear plant melted down after the enormous earthquake in Japan in March 2011, it only confirmed a feeling of anxiety that was already there, looking for some content. In six months, some new concern will grip us: a pandemic, bird flu, the food supply, melting ice caps, cell-phone radiation. + +The fear also becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the press reporting, as though it were a surprising finding, that young people are haunted by the very concerns about global warming that the press continually instills in them. As in an echo chamber, opinion polls reflect the views promulgated by the media. We are inoculated against anxiety by the repetition of the same themes, which become a narcotic we can’t do without. + +To wake people up requires ever more extreme rhetoric, including a striking number of analogies to the Holocaust. Noël Mamère, a French politician in the Green party, has accused another politician, Claude Allègre, of being a _négationniste_ about global warming—a French word that refers to those who deny the Jewish and Armenian genocides. Economist Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has explicitly compared the Danish statistician and eco-skeptic Bjørn Lomborg to the Führer. The American climate scientist James Hansen has accused oil companies trying to “spread doubt about global warming” of “high crimes against humanity and nature” and called trains transporting American coal “death trains.” _Boston Globe_ columnist Ellen Goodman has written that “global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers.” + +A time-honored strategy of cataclysmic discourse, whether performed by preachers or by propagandists, is the retroactive correction. This technique consists of accumulating a staggering amount of horrifying news and then—at the end—tempering it with a slim ray of hope. First you break down all resistance; then you offer an escape route to your stunned audience. And so the advertising copy for the Al Gore–starring documentary _An Inconvenient Truth _reads: “Humanity is sitting on a time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet’s climate system into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced—a catastrophe of our own making.” + +Now here are the means that the former vice president, like most environmentalists, proposes to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions: using low-energy lightbulbs; driving less; checking your tire pressure; recycling; rejecting unnecessary packaging; adjusting your thermostat; planting a tree; and turning off electrical appliances. Since we find ourselves at a loss before planetary threats, we will convert our powerlessness into propitiatory gestures, which will give us the illusion of action. First the ideology of catastrophe terrorizes us; then it appeases us by proposing the little rituals of a post-technological animism. But let’s be clear: a cosmic calamity is not averted by checking tire pressure or sorting garbage. + +Similarly, we are told that “our power exceeds our knowledge,” as the German philosopher Hans Jonas once put it—yet we are also told, with a certainty puzzling from such skeptics, that we must change our diets, cut back on air travel, consume fewer material goods, and stop driving gas guzzlers. This is the central aporia of green neo-asceticism: it attributes a wildly exaggerated importance to ordinary human behavior, thus weakening its appeal to the very humility that it tries to instill. + +Another contradiction inherent in apocalyptic discourse is that, though it tries desperately to awaken us, to convince us of planetary chaos, it eventually deadens us, making our eventual disappearance part of our everyday routine. At first, yes, the kinds of doom that we hear about—the acidification of the oceans, the pollution of our air—charge our calm existence with a strange excitement. The enemy is among us, and he waits for our slightest lapses, all the more insidious because he is invisible. If the function of ancient rites was to purge a community’s violence on a sacrificial victim, the function of our contemporary rites is—at first—to dramatize the status quo and to exalt us through proximity to cataclysm. + +But the certainty of the prophecies makes this effect short-lived. The language of fear does not include the word “maybe.” It tells us, rather, that the horror is inevitable. Resistant to all doubt, it is satisfied to mark the stages of degradation. This is another paradox of fear: it is ultimately reassuring. At least we know where we are heading—toward the worst. + +One consequence of this certainty is that we begin to suspect that the numberless Cassandras who prophesy all around us do not intend to warn us so much as to condemn us. In classical Judaism, the prophet sought to give new life to God’s cause against kings and the powerful. In Christianity, millenarian movements embodied a hope for justice against a Church wallowing in luxury and vice. But in a secular society, a prophet has no function other than indignation. So it happens that he becomes intoxicated with his own words and claims a legitimacy with no basis, calling down the destruction that he pretends to warn against. You’ll get what you’ve got coming!—that is the death wish that our misanthropes address to us. These are not great souls who alert us to troubles but tiny minds who wish us suffering if we have the presumption to refuse to listen to them. Catastrophe is not their fear but their joy. It is a short distance from lucidity to bitterness, from prediction to anathema. + +Another result of the doomsayers’ certainty is that their preaching, by inoculating us against the poison of terror, brings about petrification. The trembling that they want to inculcate falls flat. Anxiety has the last word. We were supposed to be alerted; instead, we are disarmed. This may even be the goal of the noisy panic: to dazzle us in order to make us docile. Instead of encouraging resistance, it propagates discouragement and despair. The ideology of catastrophe becomes an instrument of political and philosophical resignation. + +What is surprising is that the mood of catastrophe prevails especially in the West, as if it were particular to privileged peoples. Despite the economic crises of the last few years, people live better in Europe and the United States than anywhere else, which is why migrants the world over want to come to those places. Yet never have we been so inclined to condemn our societies. + +Perhaps the new Green puritanism is nothing but the reaction of a West deprived of its supreme competence, the last avatar of an unhappy neocolonialism that preaches to other cultures a wisdom that it has never practiced. For the last 20 years, non-European peoples have become masters of their own futures and have stopped regarding us as infallible models. They are likely to receive our professions of environmentalist faith with polite indifference. Billions of people look to economic growth, with all the pollution that accompanies it, to improve their condition. Who are we to refuse it to them? + +Environmental worry is universal; the sickness of the end of the world is purely Western. To counter this pessimism, we might list the good news of the last 20 years: democracy is making slow progress; more than a billion people have escaped absolute poverty; life expectancy has increased in most countries; war is becoming rarer; many serious illnesses have been eradicated. But it would do little good. Our perception is inversely proportional to reality. + +The Christian apocalypse saw itself as a hopeful revelation of the coming of God’s kingdom. Today’s has nothing to offer. There is no promise of redemption; the only hope is that those human beings who repent of their errors may escape the chaos, as in Cormac McCarthy’s fine novel _The Road_. How can we be surprised, then, that so many bright minds have become delirious and that so many strange predictions flourish? + +_Pascal Bruckner is a French writer and philosopher whose latest book is _The Paradox of Love_. His article was translated by Alexis Cornel._ diff --git a/arch-downgrade.txt b/arch-downgrade.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e34518 --- /dev/null +++ b/arch-downgrade.txt @@ -0,0 +1,67 @@ +Return to an earlier package version +Using the pacman cache + +If a package was installed at an earlier stage, and the pacman cache was not cleaned, install an earlier version from /var/cache/pacman/pkg/. + +This process will remove the current package and install the older version. Dependency changes will be handled, but pacman will not handle version conflicts. If a library or other package needs to be downgraded with the packages, please be aware that you will have to downgrade this package yourself as well. + +# cd /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ +# pacman -U <file_name_of_the_package> + +Once the package is reverted, temporarily add it to the IgnorePkg section of pacman.conf, until the difficulty with the updated package is resolved. +Downgrading the kernel + +If you are unable to boot after a kernel update, then you can downgrade the kernel via a live CD. Use a fairly recent Arch Linux installation medium. Once it has booted, mount the partition where your system is installed to /mnt, and if you have /boot or /var on separate partitions, mount them there as well (e.g. mount /dev/sdc3 /mnt/boot). Then chroot into the system: + +# arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash + +Here you can go to /var/cache/pacman/pkg and downgrade the packages. At least downgrade linux, linux-headers and any kernel modules. For example: + +# pacman -U linux-3.5.6-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz linux-headers-3.5.6-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz virtualbox-host-modules-4.2.0-5-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz + +Exit the chroot (with exit), reboot and you should be done. +Arch Linux Archive + +The Arch Linux Archive is a daily snapshot of the official repositories. + +The ALA can be used to install a previous package version, or restore the system to an earlier date. +Rebuild the package + +If the package is unavailable, find the correct PKGBUILD and rebuild it with makepkg. + +For packages from the official repositories, retrieve the PKGBUILD with ABS and change the software version. Alternatively, find the package on the Packages website, click "View Changes", and navigate to the desired version. The files are available through a .tar.gz snapshot, and via the Tree view. + +See also Getting PKGBUILDs from SVN#Checkout an older revision of a package. + +##How to downgrade one package + +Find the package you want under /packages. Download it and install it using pacman -U. + +See also Downgrading packages#Automation for tools that simplify the process. +How to restore all packages to a specific date + +To restore all packages to their version at a specific date, let's say 30 March 2014, you have to direct pacman to this date, by editing your /etc/pacman.conf and use the following server directive: + +[core] +SigLevel = PackageRequired +Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2014/03/30/$repo/os/$arch + +[extra] +SigLevel = PackageRequired +Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2014/03/30/$repo/os/$arch + +[community] +SigLevel = PackageRequired +Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2014/03/30/$repo/os/$arch + +or by replacing your /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist with the following content: + +## +## Arch Linux repository mirrorlist +## Generated on 2042-01-01 +## +Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2014/03/30/$repo/os/$arch + +Then update the database and force downgrade: + +# pacman -Syyuu diff --git a/backpacking gear list.txt b/backpacking gear list.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..6bb3cec --- /dev/null +++ b/backpacking gear list.txt @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@ +title: Backpacking Gear List +date: 20140728 22:29:42 +tags: #hiking #backpacking #list + +gearlist + +stove +cooler +citronella candles +milk crate +egg holders + + + +Gear + +1. Sleeping Bag +2. Pad +3. Tent +4. Water Bottles (2 per person) +5. Compass +6. Mirror +7. Water Purifier +8. Iodine Tablets +9. Canteen +10. Rope +11. Shovel +12. Waterproof Matches +13. Lighter +14. Stuffsacks +15. Swiss Army Knife +16. Sheath Knife +17. Ground Sheets +18. Topographical Maps +19. Flashlight +20. Extra batteries +21. Moleskin +22. First Aid Kit +23. Plastic Baggies +24. Trash Bag +25. Camera (with extra film) +26. Sewing Kit +27. Insect Repellant +28. Day pack +29. Binoculars +30. Water Bag +31. Tripod + +Personal Gear + +1. Toothbrush +2. Toothpaste +4. Toilet Paper +5. Sunscreen +6. Chapstick + + +Clothing + +1. Two Pair of Shorts (one bathing suit) +2. Warm Pants +3. Two-Three T-shirts +4. Warm Shirt (wool or flanel) +5. Long Underwear +6. Raingear +7. Mittens +8. Hat +9. Underwear (2-3) +10. Normal Socks (1-2) pair +11. Hiking Socks (2 pair) +12. Liner Socks (2 pair) +13. Jacket +14. Boots +15. Shoes (after hiking) + +Cooking Gear + +1. Stove +2. Fuel Canister +3. Eye Dropper +4 Mess Kit +5. Utensils +6. Pots (2) +7. Bakepacker +8. Cups +8. Pan Scruber +10. Spices +11. Snacks and Extra food +12. Waterproof Matches +13. Lighter +14. Spatula + + +1. Boot Sealant +2. Pad for Stove +3. Warm Jacket +4. Warm Pants +5. Mittens +6. Gaitors +11. Ice Ax diff --git a/backpacking-breakfasts.txt b/backpacking-breakfasts.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..776cffb --- /dev/null +++ b/backpacking-breakfasts.txt @@ -0,0 +1,432 @@ +title: One Pan Wonders Breakfasts +date: 20140730 10:22:22 +tags: #travel #camping + +source <http://www.onepanwonders.com/breakfasts.htm> + +BREAKFASTS +OATMEAL + +Chai Oatmeal + +If you like chai tea, you are going to love this! Try adding chopped dried apricots +instead of the golden raisins. + +¾ cup quick cooking oatmeal +1/8 t turmeric +¼ t ground coriander +½ t ground cinnamon +¼ t ground allspice +1/8 t nutmeg +pinch of ground cloves +1 T brown sugar +¼ cup golden raisins +1/3 cup powdered milk + +At home: combine everything in a zip-locking plastic bag. + +In camp: bring 1 ½ cups of water to a boil. Add the contents of the bag. Stir and +cook for 1 minute, then remove from the heat. Let stand for 5 minutes or until the +oatmeal is at the consistency you like. Add more water if it is too thick. + +__ + Peaches and Cream Oatmeal + +2/3 cup oatmeal +3 T dried peaches, chopped +2 T powdered milk +1/8 t ground nutmeg +1 t cinnamon +1 T brown sugar + +At home: combine everything in a zip locking plastic bag. + +In camp: bring 1 cup of water to a boil. Add the oatmeal and simmer until it reaches your desired thickness. +__ + +Chocolate Banana Oatmeal +1 serving + +Don’t try this with regular dried bananas. They are too hard. Look for the freeze-dried +ones. You can get them from justtomatoes.com or in the cereal aisle as “cereal toppers.” + +1/3 cup quick cooking oatmeal +1 t unsweetened cocoa powder +2 T powdered milk +2 t brown sugar +¼ cup freeze-dried banana, broken up +chocolate cookies, crumbled (optional) + +At home: combine everything except the cookies in a zip locking plastic bag. If you are +bringing the cookies, package them separately. + +In camp: bring 1 cup of water to a boil, add the oatmeal and stir. Simmer until the +oatmeal is cooked through. Serve topped with the cookies. + +VARIATIONS: +Try the same thing with freeze dried strawberries or raspberries. +Substitute freshly picked (on the trail) berries for the bananas. +___________________________________________________________________ + +Cherry Orange Oatmeal +2 servings + +Tart and sweet! + +1 cup quick cooking oatmeal +½ cup dried cherries, chopped up +2 t finely shredded orange peel +¼ t cinnamon +dash of ground nutmeg +1/3 cup powdered milk +1 T brown sugar +¼ cup chopped pecans + +At home: combine everything except the pecans in a zip locking plastic bag. +Carry the pecans separately. + +In camp: bring 1 ½ cups of water to a boil. Add the oatmeal. Stir and cook for +1 minute, then remove from the heat. Let stand for 5 minutes or until the oatmeal +is at the consistency you like. Add more water if it is too thick. Serve topped with +the pecans. +__________________________________________________________________ + + Tropical Oatmeal + +Try papaya or apricots (or a combination!) instead of the mangoes. + +2/3 cups oatmeal +1 T powdered milk +½ t cinnamon +3 T dried mangoes, chopped +1 T dried pineapple, chopped +1 t orange zest +1 T shredded coconut +1 T macadamia nuts, chopped (optional) +¼ t allspice +Brown sugar to taste + +At home: combine everything in a zip locking plastic bag. + +In camp: bring 1 cup of water to a boil. Add the oatmeal and simmer until it is as thick as you would like it. +__________________________________________________________________ + + Banana Orange Oatmeal + +½ cup plain oatmeal +2 T freeze dried bananas, crushed into powder +1 t orange zest +1 t powdered milk +sugar to taste + +At home: combine everything in a zip locking plastic bag. + +In camp: bring 1 cup of water to a boil, add the oatmeal and simmer for 1 minute or until thickened. +____________________________________________________________________ + +Grains +10 Grain Cereal + + + +1 cup 10-grain cereal mix (I like Bob's Red Mill) +1/2 t cinnamon +1/4 t nutmeg +2 T powdered milk +1 T brown sugar (or more to taste) +Dried fruit and/or nuts (optional) + +At home: combine all of the ingredients in a zip locking plastic bag. + +In camp: Bring 3 cups of water to a boil. Add the cereal and stir. Lower heat +and simmer until the cereal is as thick as you'd like it. Top with dried fruit and nuts. +_________________________________________________________________ + +10 Grain Apple Walnut Cereal + +When I was testing this for the website, my daughter stole my spoon and wouldn't give +it back! She ate most of my breakfast! So I guess it is safe to say that even kids like this. + + + +1 serving + +1 apple-cinnamon tea bag +1/2 cup 10-grain cereal +1/4 cup dried apples, chopped +1 T brown sugar +2-3 T powdered milk +1/4 cup walnuts + +At home: combine the cereal, apples, brown sugar and powdered milk in a zip locking +plastic bag. You can place the tea in the bag too. Carry the walnuts in a seperate bag. +(You can add them to the cereal if you'd like, but if you add them AFTER the cereal is +cooked, they stay crunchy.) + +In camp: combine the tea bag and 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil. Remove the tea bag. +Add the cereal and apples. Stir well. Simmer for a minute or two until the cereal is the +consistancy you want. Top with walnuts and enjoy! +______________________________________________________________________ + + Raspberry Cream of Wheat + +1 package plain instant cream of wheat +1 single serving package sugar in the raw +1 t powdered milk +6-8 freeze-dried raspberries +slivered almonds (optional) + +At home: combine everything in a zip locking plastic bag. Carry the almonds separately. + +In camp: bring water to a boil. Add hot water to the cereal until you get the consistency you want. +__________________________________________________________________________ + + Strawberry Fields Breakfast + +1 serving + +1/3 cup 10 grain cereal +2 T powdered milk +2 T dried strawberries +sugar to taste (I use 2 sugar in-the-raw packets) + +At home: combine the cereal, milk and strawberries in a zip locking plastic bag. Carry the sugar separately. + +In camp: bring 1 cup of water to a boil. Add the cereal and simmer until thickened. Serve topped with the sugar. +____________________________________________________________________________ + + Bulgur with Pears + +2 T dried pears, chopped +¼ cup bulgur +1/8 t nutmeg +¼ t cinnamon +1 t brown sugar +powdered milk to taste + +At home: combine everything in a zip locking plastic bag. + +In camp: bring ½ cup of water to a boil and add the bulgur. Simmer until the bulgur is tender. Eat! +__________________________________________________________________________ + +Couscous +Creamy Mango Couscous + +This would be good topped with some chopped pecans. + +2-4 servings + +1 cup couscous +1 t powdered ginger +¼ cup dried mango, finely diced +2 T brown sugar +4 T milk powder + +At home: combine everything in a zip-locking plastic bag. + +In camp: bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Add the contents of the bag, stir, cover, +remove from heat and let sit for 5-10 minutes or until the couscous is rehydrated. +Fluff and eat. +__________________________________________________________________ + +Strawberry Banana Couscous + +This smells absolutely wonderful! + +¼ cup couscous +1 T powdered milk +¼ cup freeze dried strawberries and bananas (cereal toppers) +sugar to taste + +At home: combine everything in a zip locking plastic bag. + +In camp: add ¼ to ½ cup of hot water, depending on how creamy you would like your breakfast. Stir and let stand for 5 minutes before eating. +__________________________________________________________________ + +Banana Berry Couscous + +¼ cup couscous +1 T powdered milk +¼ cup freeze dried bananas, raspberries and blueberries (cereal toppers) +sugar to taste + +At home: combine everything in a zip locking plastic bag. + +In camp: add ¼ to ½ cup of hot water, depending on how creamy you would like your breakfast. Stir and let stand for 5 minutes before eating. +__________________________________________________________________________ + +Polenta +Breakfast Polenta + +Creamy porridge! Good fruit combinations with this are dried cranberries with walnuts +or blueberries and/or cherries with pecans. + +2-4 servings + +1 cup instant polenta (corn meal) +¼ cup powdered milk +1 t powdered butter flakes +1 T brown sugar +¼ cup chopped dried fruit and nuts + +At home: put the polenta, powdered milk and butter flakes in a zip-locking plastic bag. +Carry the dried fruit, nuts and brown sugar in a second bag. + +In camp: bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Add the contents of the bag. Stir and then lower +the heat. Cook, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, until soft and thickened. Spoon +into bowls, then top with the dried fruit, nuts and brown sugar. +_________________________________________________________________ + +Sunrise in a Bowl + +½ cup instant cornmeal +½ cup dried apples, chopped +2 T dried cranberries +1 T brown sugar +½ t cinnamon +1 packet of butter +2 T chopped pecans + +At home: combine cornmeal, apples, cinnamon, brown sugar and cranberries in a +zip locking plastic bag. Carry the pecans and butter separately. + +In camp: bring 2 ¼ cups water to a boil. Gradually add the polenta. Stir, then cover +and simmer until done. Top with pecans and butter. +________________________________________________________________ +Scrambles (Tofu and Eggs) +Green and Gold Tofu Scramble + + + +This makes two servings. Adjust the seasonings, salt and pepper to your taste. +My daughter LOVES this dish. Toddler approved! LOL. You can use scissors +or kitchen shears to cut up the mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes. The turmeric will +turn the tofu a sunny, yellow color, making them look like scrambled eggs. + +8 oz firm tofu +1-2 packets of soy sauce (1-2 tablespoons) +1/2 t turmeric +1 t dried oregano +1 T olive oil +2 T sun-dried tomatoes, NOT in oil, cut in small pieces +2 T dried mixed mushrooms, broken up +1/2 cup spinach, well packed + +At home: put the spinach in a zip locking plastic bag. In a second bag place the tomatoes, +mushrooms, oregano and turmeric. Carry the olive oil in a screw top container. +Carry the soy sauce seperately. + +In camp: heat the oil in your pan. add the tofu, breaking it up with a fork. Cook until the +tofu starts to turn golden brown. Add 1/2 cup of water, and the mushroom/tomato/spice +mixture. Simmer long enough to rehydrate (just a minute or two). Add the spinach and +soy sauce just before serving. +______________________________________________________________________ + +Herbed Tofu Scramble + + + +Another toddler approved meal! This kid loves her tofu, I guess. + +8 oz firm tofu +1 T vegetable oil +1 T dried minced onion +1/8 t ground turmeric +1/2 T dried basil +1 T dried chives +1/2 T dried dill +1/2 T dried parsley +salt and pepper to taste + +At home: combine all of the herbs and onion in a ziplocking plastic bag (just measure +the herbs right into the bag!). Carry the oil in a screw top container. +Carry the tofu seperately. + +In camp: heat the oil in your pan. add the tofu, breaking it up with a fork. Cook until the +tofu starts to turn golden brown. Add 1/4 cup of water and the herb mixture. +Allow to rehydrate (just a minute or two). Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve. +____________________________________________________________________ +Wraps +Berry Berry Wrap + + + +I’ve heard about (but haven’t been able to find - yet) apple cinnamon tortillas. Those would be fantastic with this. This can be made at home before your hike or on the trail. + +1 plain tortilla +1 single serving packet cream cheese +1 T dried blueberries +1 T dried cranberries + +At home: wrap the tortilla in foil. Combine the blueberries and cranberries in a zip locking plastic bag. Put the cream cheese in the bag too. + +In camp: spread cream cheese on the tortilla. Top with the berries. Roll and eat. +____________________________________________________________________ + + Apple Breakfast Wrap + +This can be made at home, or in camp. + +¼ cup dried apples, chopped +1 packet of honey +2 T peanut butter +½ t cinnamon +1 whole wheat tortilla or “flat out” bread + +Spread peanut butter on the tortilla. Drizzle with the honey, then sprinkle on the cinnamon. Top with the chopped apples. Roll and eat. +___________________________________________________________________ +Pancakes and other Misc. +Basic Pancake Mix +2 servings + +Note: packets of maple syrup can be located at your favorite fast food place or from +minimus.biz. Jam/jelly packets can be located at diner or from minimus.biz. Alternately, +you can pack your own at home using plastic screw top containers. + +1 cup Bisquick +1 T dry milk +1 T granulated sugar +1 T vegetable oil +2 syrup or jam packets (see note) + +At home: combine the Bisquick, milk and sugar in a zip locking plastic bag. + +In camp: add 2/3 cup water to the bag. Seal the bag, pressing out any air and squish to +break up lumps. Heat the vegetable oil in your pan. Cut off a corner of the bag and +squeeze out the batter. The pancakes are ready to be flipped when bubbles have formed +on the top. Flip and cook for 1-2 more minutes and serve with syrup or jam. +____________________________________________________________________ +Make at Home +Latte Bars + +These are great for those mornings when you want your coffee, but you need to hit the +trail and don’t have time to cook breakfast. It has your coffee and breakfast all rolled +into one package! These firm up as they cool. They are not like a granola bar. More +like a dense coffee cake or brownie. + +Makes about 2 dozen + +3 eggs +1 ½ cups sugar +2 t vanilla +¼ cup butter, melted +2 cups all-purpose flour +½ t salt +¼ cup instant coffee crystals +¼ cup milk or heavy cream +1 cup pecans, chopped +½ cup mini chocolate chips (optional) + +At home: Preheat oven to 325. Lightly grease a 13 by 9 inch pan. Beat the eggs in a +mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the sugar, vanilla and butter, beating to combine. +Stir in the flour and salt. + +Set aside 1 ½ cups of batter. Stir the coffee crystals and cream and add to the remaining +batter. Spread the coffee batter into the prepared pan. Add chocolate chips to the reserved +batter and spoon over the coffee batter. Run a knife through the two batters to marble them. +Sprinkle the pecans over the top. + +Bake 20-25 minutes or until the center is firm and set. Cool before cutting into bars. Wrap +tightly in plastic wrap. + +In camp or on the trail: Unwrap and eat! diff --git a/being and doing are not at odds.txt b/being and doing are not at odds.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..4c49c94 --- /dev/null +++ b/being and doing are not at odds.txt @@ -0,0 +1,68 @@ +title: Being and doing are not at odds +date: 20131118 10:14:34 +tags: #life +--- + + + +-- + +From <http://www.raptitude.com/2013/05/doing-and-being/> + +# Being and doing are not at odds + +by David Cain + +Every time I write something on the topic of [personal productivity](http://www.raptitude.com/2013/05/how-to-cross-every-item-off-your-to-do-list-in-one-night/), a few people suggest that maybe doing more isn’t appropriate at all. + +As a friend of mine suggested on the [Facebook page](http://facebook.com/raptitudedotcom), Western society has an obsession with productivity. We grow up being taught that we want to “do well” but we’re not often taught explicitly what that means. Success is a vague word, and in the absence of a meaningful definition it seems to refer to little more than having an above average income and a lot of phone calls to return. + +We know that there’s something very near-sighted about taking busyness and career success for compass-North in our personal quests for happiness, so it’s understandable that the discerning person might be suspicious of anyone that appears unusually preoccupied with their personal productivity. + +Last summer, I was more socially active than I’d ever been. Over the winter my focus shifted totally, and as the recreation season returns I find I’m spending most of my spare time at my desk. I’ve been turning down a lot of social invitations, giving vague reasons most of the time, but those who know me best know I am working. Some of them may be wondering, in my conspicuous absence, if I’ve lost touch with the values I espouse — staying present, connecting with other human beings, and enjoying the in-between moments. + +A certain amount of personal productivity is absolutely necessary, at least enough to feed ourselves, clothe ourselves, and maintain some semblance of stability and autonomy. But I’ve been achieving those minimum productivity standards my whole life, so the question “Why do you need to do more than you’re already doing?” is a fair one. + +Well, I don’t need to do more. Other than the physical essentials of life, I don’t strictly need anything. But it makes no sense at all to cease all activity except the minimum necessary to survive. After I earn enough to pay my food and rent, “unnecessary” productivity becomes any activity other than sleeping, eating, going to the bathroom and meditating. We each decide how much time to apply to any given “electives” in our lives: how many movies to watch, how many barbecues to attend, how many blogs to read, how often to make coffee, and of course, how much we work. Right now I want to accomplish more work than I have been, and I think I have good reasons. + +### Productivity is not the problem + +There is a lot of undue criticism of productivity itself. We see the mounting consequences of thoughtless, irresponsible productivity in the forms of pollution, invasive advertising, mass-produced food, atrocious overseas working conditions, and the death of our own manufacturing sector, to name a few obvious problems. + +These are serious issues, but they’re not caused by productivity, they’re caused by thoughtlessness and irresponsibility, a confusion of what it is we really value. For example, a recurring [theme](http://www.raptitude.com/2011/12/how-to-get-rich-without-making-more-money/) on this blog is that money is attractive only because it is traded for what we value, which actually only amounts to certain [pleasant feelings](http://www.raptitude.com/2012/07/what-you-want-is-never-a-thing/). The result is that many people believe it is money that they value, driving the thoughtless kind of productivity that regularly annihilates animal species, erodes personal freedoms and poisons the tap water. + +Productivity is often thoughtless, yes. I understand the suspicion that arises whenever we talk about how to be more productive, because we don’t often talk about whether that’s even a good thing. The way our culture reveres growth and profit, it’s easy to assume that whatever we’ve been doing, we ought to get more of it done if we can. As author Richard Carlson quipped in [_Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff_](http://amzn.to/XKKvXP), “People are no longer human beings. We should be called human doings.” + +Western society certainly does carry an enormous deficit in the attention it pays to _being_, as opposed to doing. Meditation and mindfulness, at least when done intentionally, are still fringe activities associated with hippies and new-agers. We don’t think of “being” as a verb. + +Doing nothing is taboo in our culture’s productivity-focused ethos, even though conscious periods of non-doing are proven to improve health, reduce stress, and make it easier to be happy. In my experience, the habit of periodic non-doing actually lends itself to becoming _more_ productive, and makes it easier to notice when your productivity is aimed in the wrong direction. + +### Presence is a basic need + +At least for now, time spent simply being, rather than doing, is not part of a normal person’s day. Yet we all have a persistent appetite for mindful states, even if we don’t realize it. The thousands of different activities we indulge in our off-days might have little in common except that they quickly put us into a present-moment state. All of them — lounging at the beach, watching movies cycling, needlepoint, off-roading, taking drugs, backpacking overseas , music-making, writing, having sex, and having a picnic — relieve us temporarily of the mind’s insidious habit of drifting into the future, which only exists as imagination. + +The experience of mindfulness, whether cultivated intentionally or derived as a side-effect of what we normally do for fun, is as visceral a need as any. Our Western societies could benefit from being more aware of that need. If we were, we’d make sure that we have those mindful experiences by engaging in activities that produce something useful for ourselves or others — such as writing, exercising, practicing a skill or building something — instead of baking on the couch in front of the television, having been drawn there by intrinsic needs we don’t understand or try to understand. + +Personal productivity doesn’t need to be at odds with mindfulness. Being doesn’t need to be separate from doing. In fact, if the work you’re engaged in is highly resonant with your values, a mindful state arises naturally, because there’s nothing to escape from, nowhere you’d rather be. + +The feeling of being productive is different when what you’re producing isn’t truly important to you. For most of us, our jobs are a perfect example. When you’re just trying to pay the bills, work achievement feels more like a fleeting relief, a hit of something temporary, rather than a clearing of the mind. + +At my job, I’m always pleased to get a batch of work done. It is gratifying, but it only the sense of feeling like I’ve pushed away something I don’t want for a little while. When I’m making progress on my own personal projects, it feels like I’m moving through the world. + +My personal quest for productivity has been more of a struggle to make sure that the most important things do happen, rather than making sure that I make as much happen as possible. There is a difference. Over the last few months, particularly the last few weeks, I’ve been more focused on my personal projects than ever, because they’re beginning to generate their own momentum in a way job-related work never has for me. + +The goal of all this is to be able pay my living expenses doing what I love, which is writing. The moment I reach that benchmark, I can cut loose my fifty-hour-a-week commitment to an employer, along with all of its related burdens such as buying work clothes, waking up and going to bed at inflexible times and having to ask permission to get on a plane. + +I am partway there. This is worthwhile productivity, if anything is worthwhile. It is certainly more worthwhile than reporting to a full-time corporate job for forty years, just to pay for what I do on my evenings and weekends. + +### Smelling roses + +Last weekend was Canada’s May long weekend. It rained every day. I spent most of my three days off working on my own projects. It was one of my most productive weekends ever. I wrote every day. I culled all my files. I cleaned my stove. For the first time I can remember, I have no resistance to getting down to work. For a seasoned procrastinator, this has been a transcendent experience. + +The most surprising part of this burst of productivity is that it came with a more mindful, relaxed state. I felt like time was slower and life was more spacious. I got a lot more work done, but I also did a lot more leisure reading, went for more walks and did a lot more mindful sitting — much more rose-smelling, and more of an inclination to take a moment to do it. + +This state is lingering. Every action is more conscious, I’m more patient at my job, I enjoy waiting in line and [walking across parking lots](http://www.raptitude.com/2011/09/how-to-walk-across-a-parking-lot/) more than I ever have. As it turns out, productivity — at least when I’m working on the right things — makes it easy to stay in the moment, to be where I am. + +When it’s applied to what’s most important to you, an increase in productivity is not tantamount to sacrificing the quality of the present to improve the quality of the future. It’s not an a deferral of today’s happiness for tomorrow’s. + +We don’t need to “strike a balance” between being and doing, between work and repose. These are not separate categories of living, as they’re often made out to be. Doing the work that serves your real values improves the _present_ reality of your life. It makes life better right now, and later, and probably forever, as all worthy goals should. diff --git a/book a cheap flight.txt b/book a cheap flight.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..8a26e38 --- /dev/null +++ b/book a cheap flight.txt @@ -0,0 +1,90 @@ +Book a cheap flight + +tags: travel
date: August 12, 2013 7:48:50 PM +---
+ +![An airplane departs Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.][1]Joshua Lott/Reuters An airplane departs Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. + +It used to be so simple. You wanted to go to Paris, so you called a travel agency, gave them your dates and budget, and with any luck, you soon had in your hands a real paper ticket with a real dollar value. Even in the early days of the Internet, it was easier. You went to one of the few booking sites — [Travelocity][2] or [Expedia][3], most likely — searched for your route, paid with a credit card and that was it. Maybe you even got a paper ticket in the mail. Those were the days! + +Today, however, booking a flight is a total mess. Travelocity and Expedia have been joined by [Bing][4] and [Orbitz][5] and [Dohop][6] and [Vayama][7] and [CheapTickets][8] and [CheapOair][9] and [Kayak][10] and [SideStep][11] and [Mobissimo][12] and and and … I could go on and list every single Web site out there, but I won’t. There are just too many. Instead, I’ll lead you through the steps I make when I’m booking a flight myself. + +I’ve covered this territory a bit before — [here][13] and [here][14] — but today I’ll try to go into more detail. For this experiment, let’s imagine a simple domestic trip: a weekend of snowboarding in Jackson Hole in Wyoming at the beginning of March. + +My first stop is, as it’s been for years now, [Kayak.com][10]. It’s the simplest airfare search engine — minimal graphics, no discount vacation deals to confuse me, and it searches almost every other site out there — and also the most flexible. I can not only choose a window for my departure and arrival times but also decide where I want (or don’t want) to spend a layover, or which frequent-flier alliance to stick with. + +Kayak gives me two decent-looking options: $231 on American Airlines (Newark to Jackson via Chicago) and $241 for Delta (via Atlanta); taxes and fees included in both figures. I’m lucky here — I have gold status on American, so I can avoid the checked-baggage fees for my snowboard. + +Of course, I don’t stop there. Next, I’ll check [ITASoftware.com][15], a somewhat complicated site that makes it feel as if you’re a travel agent tapping into unusual, semisecret routes. Maybe there’s a faster way to Wyoming, perhaps through Minneapolis? Not this time. For the Jackson Hole trip, ITA finds the same American Airlines itinerary, pricing it at $230 instead of $231. Frankly, it’s a pretty normal trip, so there are no surprises. And anyway, ITA doesn’t let you book tickets, instead directing you to other sites or travel agents. + +So, I check out another site: [cFares.com][16], which has a twist. For a $50 annual membership, you’ll get small rebates if you book through them. Each rebate may be only $8 or $20, but if you fly several times a year, that can add up quickly. And last spring, cFares found me a flight from New York to Paris for $543.17, or about $200 less than any other search engine found. + +For my theoretical ski trip, cFares knocks that $241 Delta flight down to $229 via the rebate (clicking the link sends you to Orbitz to book), but it doesn’t bring up the American flight at all. + +And so, finally, if I were going to book this trip, I’d go straight to [AA.com][17], login with my frequent-flier account and buy my ticket right there. Except … I’ve waited too long! In the couple of hours between when I first started searching and when I eventually decided to book, the fares have gone way up — the flight is now $298. Still, because I have status on American, it’s the better deal. + +![][18]bing.com + +Or is it? Will the price go down? For that, I check [Farecast.com][19] (which has been absorbed into Bing) and [Yapta.com][20], which track airfares and can predict — based on historical data and knowledge of the airlines’ pricing systems — if a price is going to go up or down in the near future. In this case, Bing/Farecast says buy, so I guess I will, even though I’m a little skeptical of their methods. In light of volatile oil prices, pandemic panics and the generally unpredictable future of travel, I don’t know how much to trust these virtual prognosticators. At some point, I have to perform an important, very personal calculation: is it worth my time to keep searching — and to keep worrying that I’m missing out on a better deal? Or should I just go for it and accept that I’ve found a decent fare? + +For an international flight, things are slightly more complicated. Let’s imagine I’m going to Bangkok in early April (as I very well might be). For this trip, my dates are a bit more open-ended, as is the amount of time I’m willing to take to get to Thailand. So, I’ll again start with Kayak, checking out its airfare matrix, a calendar-based grid that appears when I enter my origin, destination and the month I’m traveling. + +![][21]Kayak.com + +Each day of the calendar has a dollar figure showing the lowest possible fare with a departure for that date. Click on the day (April 1 in this case) and a long list appears, with fares ranging from “$950%2B” to “$1400%2B” and boxes that let me specify how long of a trip I want: 1-4 days, 5-9 days, 10-14 days or 15%2B days. Ten to 14 sounds reasonable, a choice that lands me a one-stop flight (there’s no longer a nonstop, alas) with Cathay Pacific at “$1,165%2B.” That plus sign is important, because now I have to click “Check now” and find out what the fare will really be … Surprise! It really is $1,165. + +If, however, I do the search again, specifying flexible dates, I come up with a bunch of $1,000 options on Air China. Which do I go for? + +That’s when I start checking other sites. First is [Vayama.com][7], a booking site that specializes in international flights and claims to have access to private deals unavailable elsewhere. And Vayama comes through pretty well, finding a $1,048 fare on Asiana (taxes and fees included) and, intriguingly, a $1,230 fare on a Oneworld Alliance airline. Which one? I won’t know until I book, but since American Airlines is a Oneworld member, my frequent-fliergold status might garner me an upgrade, or at least the chance to earn a bunch of miles and request a better seat. + +Meanwhile, cFares finds that same $1,048 fare on Asiana (actually, it finds it on Vayama, and on CheapoAir.com) and offers a respectable $30 rebate. Not bad. Now I just need to decide: would I prefer to fly through Seoul (on Asiana) or Beijing (on Air China), or do I want to plump an extra $200 for several thousand frequent-flier miles on American? + +Honestly, I don’t know. But I should probably make up my mind soon, before the airlines get wind of my plans. + +![][22]SeatExpert.com The seat plan for an Air China +Boeing 747-400. + +Still, however, there are a few more little things I do to game the system as much as possible. I try to fly on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, when fares tend to be a little lower (though not always) and fewer people mob the airports (though not always). I go to [SeatExpert.com][23] to find the best spot in the plane to park myself. (Sorry, [SeatGuru.com][24]!) And I try always to buy the ticket directly through the airline, partly to maximize frequent-flier miles, partly because the airlines sometimes have special deals that don’t show up on Kayak, but also so that if things go wrong at the airport (as I’ve heard happens on very rare occasions) the airline won’t be able to blame some third-party booker. + +None of this, of course, is foolproof. Fares go up or down seemingly at random, routes change or evaporate or come into being according to no logic I can discern, and what I imagine would be an empty flight could turn out to be full of rowdy high-schoolers on a class trip. (They’re worse than babies, seriously.) But traveling well (and frugally) means being ready for the unexpected — even when it happens long before you ever get on the plane. + +**Related** + + * [Sites That Do Your Fare Digging][25] + * [How To Find Cheaper Flying Dates][26] + * [Travel Web Sites: A Click-On Showdown][14] + * [Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend][13] + * [A New Way to Nab a Better Seat on the Plane][27] + * [Handy Airline Surcharge Charts][28] + * [Save With B-List Airlines][29] + + [1]: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/02/17/travel/17frugal/17frugal-blogSpan.jpg + [2]: http://www.travelocity.com/ + [3]: http://www.expedia.com/default.asp + [4]: http://www.bing.com/ + [5]: http://www.orbitz.com/ + [6]: http://www.dohop.com/ + [7]: http://www.vayama.com/ + [8]: http://www.cheaptickets.com/ + [9]: http://www.cheapoair.com/ + [10]: http://www.kayak.com/ + [11]: http://www.sidestep.com/ + [12]: http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/click-it-and-ticket-booking-a-flight-the-frugal-way/Mobissimo.com + [13]: http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/research-the-travelers-best-friend/ + [14]: http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/more-links-in-the-research-chain/ + [15]: http://itasoftware.com/ + [16]: http://www.cfares.com/ + [17]: http://www.aa.com/homePage.do + [18]: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/02/17/travel/17frugal/17frugal-custom1.jpg + [19]: http://www.bing.com/travel/ + [20]: http://www.yapta.com/ + [21]: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/02/17/travel/17frugal/17frugal-custom2.jpg + [22]: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/02/17/travel/17frugal/17frugal-custom3.jpg + [23]: http://seatexpert.com/ + [24]: http://www.seatguru.com/ + [25]: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/travel/21Prac.html + [26]: http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/how-to-find-cheaper-flying-dates/ + [27]: http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/a-new-way-to-nab-a-better-seat/ + [28]: http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/handy-airline-surcharge-charts/ + [29]: http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/save-with-b-list-airlines/ +
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/book about nadia boulanger composer, conductor.txt b/book about nadia boulanger composer, conductor.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..0375fb6 --- /dev/null +++ b/book about nadia boulanger composer, conductor.txt @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +ideax-book about Nadia Boulanger (Composer, Conductor) + +Book about Nadia Boulanger + +http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Boulanger + +And: + +From <http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Boulanger-Nadia.htm>:
Nadia Boulanger (Composer, Conductor) + +Born: September 16, 1887 - Paris, France +Died: October 22, 1979 - Paris, France + +The French composer, conductor, organist and influential teacher, Nadia (Juliette) Boulanger, was born to a musical family. Her grandmother, Marie-Julie Boulanger, was a celebrated singer at the Opéra Comique. Her grandfather, Frédéric Boulanger won first prize for the cello in his fifth year (1797) at the recently founded Paris Conservatoire. Her father, Ernest Boulanger (1815-1900), entered the Conservatoire at the age of 16, studying piano, violin, and composition. In 1835, he won the Conservatoire's top prize, the Prix de Rome, for a one-act opera, Le Diable à l'École (The Devil at School). He later taught singing at the Conservatoire. In 1874, while he was performing in Russia, he met a young, married Russian schoolteacher, Raissa Suvalov (née Myschetsky). She moved to Paris to attend his singing class at the Conservatoire, and in 1877 they married; she was aged 20 and he 62. Their first child, Juliette Nadia Boulanger was born in Paris ten years later. By her sixth birthday, she was studying music under her mother's tutelage. A second child, Lili, was born in 1893. The ageing father asked Nadia to promise to look after the newborn girl for the rest of her life. + +Nadia Boulanger entered the Conservatoire at the age of 10, studying harmony with Paul Vidal and composition with Charles Marie Widor and Gabriel Fauré; she also studied the organ privately with Louis Vierne and Félix-Alexandre Guilmant. While still a student at the Conservatoire, she became the family's only breadwinner on the death of her father in 1900. She began taking engagements as a pianist, and teaching private students in the family's new flat in the rue Ballu, where she continued to live and teach until her death more than 75 years later. Among her early pupils was her younger sister, Lili, who studied counterpoint with her. In 1906, Boulanger became Fauré's assistant at the great organ of the Église de la Madeleine. She remained a lifelong devotee of his music and later introduced his Requiem to several cities in Britain and the USA. + +After winning the Conservatoire's top prizes for harmony, counterpoint, fugue, organ and piano accompaniment, Nadia Boulanger came to wider public attention in 1908, when, in a preliminary round for the Prix de Rome, she submitted a fugue for string quartet, rather than for voices as specified, causing a stir in musical circles. Despite objections from at least one examiner, she was allowed to progress to the final round, and was placed second with her cantata La sirène. She failed to win the Premier Grand Prix the following year also, even though on both occasions she was generally acknowledged to have written the best cantata. Her younger sister Lili, who was, as Boulanger acknowledged, the more talented composer, won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome in 1913, the first woman composer to do so. By that time, Nadia was firmly established as a teacher, and had little time to compose. + +Nadia Boulanger's compositions, published between 1901 and 1922, comprise 29 songs for solo singer and piano; nine larger-scale vocal works, some with orchestra; five works for instrumental solo (organ, cello, piano); two orchestral works, and an opera, La ville morte, and a song cycle, Les heures claires, both composed jointly with Raoul Pugno, for whom she composed a Fantaisie variée for piano and orchestra. The opera was due to be staged in 1914, but owing to Pugno's death and events leading up to World War I, it was never performed. A complete vocal score and the orchestration of Acts 1 and 3 survive. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians says of Boulanger's music, "Her musical language is often highly chromatic (though always tonally based), and Debussy's influence is apparent … her self-critical attitude (the Fantaisie variée bears signs of extensive revision and is not performable in its present state) led her to concentrate on teaching." Most of her compositions date from before her younger sister's triumph at the Prix de Rome. Lili had never been healthy, and in 1918 she died. After Lili's death, Nadia abandoned composition, publishing only a few songs in 1922, and then nothing more. Fauré believed she was mistaken to stop composing, but she told told him, "If there is one thing of which I am certain, it is that my music is worthless." + +Nadia Boulanger, who liked to be known as "Mademoiselle", made her conducting debut in 1912. She was the first woman to conduct several major symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and in England the Hallé Orchestra of Manchester and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. On her first American tour she premiered Aaron Copland's Symphony for Organ and Orchestra. 1937 she became the first woman to conduct a complete concert of the Royal Philharmonic Society in London. In 1938 she directed the first performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Concerto, Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC. + +As a performer she made few recordings. In 1937 HMV issued three sets of discs featuring her: the Piano Concerto in D by Jean Françaix, which she conducted; the Johannes Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes, in which she and Dinu Lipatti were the duo pianists with a vocal ensemble; and the first recordings of any music by Monteverdi: a selection of his madrigals, which she directed. + +The composer Ned Rorem described Nadia Boulanger as "the most influential teacher since Socrates." She taught a very large number of students from Europe, Australia, and Canada, as well as over 600 American musicians. However, neither she nor Annette Dieudonné, her life-long friend and assistant, kept records of the students who studied with her. It is, moreover, virtually impossible to determine the nature and extent of many musicians' private study with Boulanger, ranging from prolonged and intensive tuition to brief, informal advice. + +Nadia Boulanger's first teaching position was at the Conservatoire Femina-Musica in Paris in 1907. Later, she was one of the first staff members at Alfred Cortot's École Normale de Musique de Paris, beginning in 1920, where she taught a large variety of subjects. She was disappointed at not winning an appointment to the faculty of the Conservatoire, but in 1921 she was invited to join the first faculty of the Conservatoire Américain at Fontainebleau. This was a summer school, sponsored by American donors, at which Boulanger taught harmony, counterpoint, and composition under the directorship of Paul Dukas. Among her first pupils there was Aaron Copland, who was followed by many other young American composers. Some of her students from the 1920’s on, including Copland, Quincy Jones, Denoe Leedy, Walter Piston, George Peter Tingley, Roy Harris, Virgil Thomson, Michel Legrand, Joe Raposo, Philip Glass, Robert Shafer, and Elliott Carter established a new school of composition based on her teaching. Virgil Thompson once said that every town in the USA had a five-and-dime and a Boulanger pupil. Boulanger eventually became director of the Conservatoire Américain in 1948. She also taught at the Longy School of Music and the Paris Conservatoire. She lived in the USA during World War II and taught at Wellesley College, Radcliffe College, and the Juilliard School. + +Nadia Boulanger's European students included Igor Markevitch, John Eliot Gardiner, Jean Françaix, Francis Chagrin, and Lennox Berkeley. In England she taught at the Yehudi Menuhin School, and gave lectures on a wide range of music topics at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music which were broadcast nationally by the BBC. Shalso served on the juries of international piano competitions including, in 1966, the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, chaired by Emil Gilels. + +Nadi Boulanger's teaching methods included traditional harmony, score reading at the piano, species counterpoint, analysis, and sight singing (using fixed-Do solfège). She disapproved of innovation for innovation's sake: "When you are writing music of your own, never strain to avoid the obvious." "You need an established language and then, within that established language, the liberty to be yourself. It's always necessary to be yourself - that is a mark of genius in itself." + +Even though her eyesight and hearing began to fade towards the end of her life, Nadia Boulanger worked almost until her death in 1979.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/cabin porn.txt b/cabin porn.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..527ef99 --- /dev/null +++ b/cabin porn.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +http://cabinporn.com/post/45759619595/home-on-pacific-coast-of-chiloe-island-chile +http://cabinporn.com/post/45108837379/off-grid-hostel-on-deer-isle-maine-built-by +http://cabinporn.com/post/50499751480/vineyard-cabin-in-urla-turkey-photographed-by +http://cabinporn.com/post/50298809698/cabin-on-mt-hood-near-zig-zag-oregon +http://cabinporn.com/post/49915317123/the-floating-farmhouse-in-eldred-new-york +http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcn2o3IUVc1qzwmsso1_1280.jpg
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/car camping list.txt b/car camping list.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..8fca044 --- /dev/null +++ b/car camping list.txt @@ -0,0 +1,106 @@ +Camping List 2 + +- In Kitchen Box + * 2 cold drink cups + * 2 coffee mugs + * MSR Pots (2 w/ lids) + * Windscreen + * Stove + * Chef Knife + * French Press + * First Aid Kit + * Rope + * Shovel + * 1 freeze dried meal + * 2 bowls + * pot handle + * Utinsels + * 1 fork + * 2 spoons + * 2 knives + * 2 sharp knives + * 3 slotted serving spoons + * 1 turner + * quart size plastic baggies + * salt and pepper shakers + * scrubber sponge + * dish soap + * water proof matches + * lighter wand + * trash bag + * plastic bags (store kind) + * Insect Repellant (Off) + * Grill + +- In Mattress Bag + * Mattress + * Pump + * Charger + * Car Charger + * Fitted Sheet + * Sheet + +- In tent bag + * Tent + * Ground Cover + * Vestibule + * Rain Fly + * Stakes + +- In camp box (need to buy) + * Lighter Fluid + * Charcoal + * Gas Cans + +- MISC - need to pack + * Camp Chairs + * Pack-n-Plays + * Coffee maker + * Sleeping Bag/Blankets + * Water Bottles + * Water Jug + * Binoculars + * Tripod + * Camera + * pillows + * grill scrubber/brush + * skillets/pans + * sunscreen + * wipes + * toothbrush/toiletries + * medications + * sunglasses + * lip balm + * earplugs + * field guides + * cards/Phase 10 + * kite + * paper towels + * dish towels + +- Need to buy + * Plates http://www.rei.com/product/830755/rei-campware-plate + * 2 more bowls: http://www.rei.com/product/830753/rei-campware-bowl + * 3 more forks: http://www.rei.com/product/781526/rei-campware-fork + * 2 Headlamps: http://www.rei.com/product/829550/petzl-tikka-plus-2-headlamp + * 2 Wide mouth Nalgenes: http://www.rei.com/product/852355/rei-nalgene-wide-mouth-loop-top-water-bottle-32-fl-oz + * splash guard for corrinne: http://www.rei.com/product/729119/guyot-designs-splashguard-universal + * good rain jacket: http://www.rei.com/product/837221/arcteryx-alpha-sl-hybrid-jacket-mens + * Extra AA/AAA batteries + * Swiss Army Knife + * Sewing Kit + * cast iron cookware + * larger grill + * hachet + * small camp chairs + +- For Hiking + * Day Pack + * Compass + * Mirror + * Stuffsacks + * Moleskin + * Extra water bottles + * hiking boots + * child carrier packs + diff --git a/character names.txt b/character names.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..b187e3c --- /dev/null +++ b/character names.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +Character Names + +Adie Barleycorn +Jack Spaniard +Jim French +Tad Hawkings
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/character.txt b/character.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..d2f5568 --- /dev/null +++ b/character.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +Character + +Girl with a tattoo of an apple on the inside of her arm. Not the company, eris.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/childrens book.txt b/childrens book.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..d329313 --- /dev/null +++ b/childrens book.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +Childrens Book + +Claire and Ernst play everyday on the swing set at the park near the woods. One day they find a magical world in the woods, they have several adventures and then one day Claire decides to stay in the magical wood. + +The next day Ernst goes to play on the swing but there's no one to push him and he is sad. The next day he brings another friend but she/he doesn't push right and he is sad. Finally the swing won't move at all w/o Claire. Finally Claire returns and they play on the swing again and promise never to be apart again.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/chinese character catastrophe.txt b/chinese character catastrophe.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4d064f --- /dev/null +++ b/chinese character catastrophe.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +The Chinese character for catastrophe is the same as that which represents the word opportunity. diff --git a/christmas food.txt b/christmas food.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..fdd9e02 --- /dev/null +++ b/christmas food.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +Christmas Food + +Oranges in stockings +Gravlax, meats and cheeses. +open real presents +Monkey bread [[Monkey Bread]], bacon and eggs.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/cleaning solution.txt b/cleaning solution.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..5feb4cc --- /dev/null +++ b/cleaning solution.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +title: cleaning solution +date: 20140730 10:22:22 +tags: #house #diy + +3/8 c bleach +1/2 gal water +1 T powdered laundry detergent diff --git a/concrete.txt b/concrete.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..c797727 --- /dev/null +++ b/concrete.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +Concrete + +DIFFERENT TYPES OF CONCRETE CLASSIFIED BY TEXTURE: + +ANCIENT very rough old hand made concrete often chipped and faded almost to tan, large chunks of gravel abound, cracks plentiful and often show signs of plant growth + +OLD mixed in towable cyclinders, rough but lacking in the abundance of chalky gravel. Cracks tend to form from center of one side to the center ofthe the side opposite. Provides excellent traction even when wet. Very thin spaces between sections + +CONCRETE MODERNITY: SMOOTH WHITE CONCRETE laid in very rich areas, huge gaps between segments in which cigarette butts, dirt and gum often accumulate. Less porus surface provides little traction when wet.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/cooking gear for travel.txt b/cooking gear for travel.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..ead15fd --- /dev/null +++ b/cooking gear for travel.txt @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +Cooking Gear for Travel + +From <http://www.vagabondjourney.com/cooking-gear-for-travel/> + +# Cooking Gear for Travel + +by Wade Shepard + + +I cook my own food when traveling, I’ve written about the benefits of cooking your own meals many times before on this site. When in camp on bicycle trips, when in hotel rooms, when making a travel hub in an apartment I will generally cook at least one meal a day for myself. + +This is the cooking gear that I always carry with me: + + * -A stainless steel plate that has a high lip so it can second as a bowl. I also will flip it upside down and use it as a cutting board. + * -2 Pots so that I can cook a starch (rice, noodles) in one and my meat and vegetables in the other. + * -Silverware. Nothing special here. + * -A can opener. This is optional as cans can be opened with a spoon. + * -A corkscrew. Also optional, as corks can be removed with a pocket knife. + * -A pocket knife. + * -A tuna can alcohol camp stove. If I don’t have access to a stove in a kitchen I will use my homemade tuna can stove. ([Learn how to make a tuna can stove here](http://www.vagabondjourney.com/how-to-make-a-tuna-can-camp-travel-stove/).) If I’m staying in a hub for a month or two I will sometimes buy an electric burner and use this instead. + * -I keep this cooking gear wrapped up tight in a dry bag. ([Read about these dry bags here](http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travelogue/waterproof-dry-bags-for-travel-gear-are-essential/).) + +I prefer stainless steel cooking gear to plastic, aluminum, glass, or Teflon alternatives, as this material is extremely durable, it can be placed on a live flame, and does not contaminate the food. Stainless steel pots and plates are also pretty cheap in many places in the world — though they can sometimes be difficult to find. + + + +Cooking gear in action + +My cooking gear is not extensive or in any way expensive, but it gets the job done. Carrying this gear gives me the liberty to go beyond relying on restaurants for my sustenance, allows me to eat cheaper and healthier, and, in the end, makes me a more self-sufficient traveler. + +_This article is part of the Vagabond Cookbook._ + diff --git a/cron sync.txt b/cron sync.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..cb67908 --- /dev/null +++ b/cron sync.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +cron sync + +rsync -e "ssh" -avrczh ~/Documents --progress --stats --exclude '.DS_Store' --exclude 'Quickbooks' --exclude 'Finance' luxagraf@web177.webfaction.com:/home/luxagraf/backup/Documents + + +rsync -e "ssh" -rc ~/Pictures/iPhone\ Library --exclude '.DS_Store' luxagraf@web177.webfaction.com:/home/luxagraf/backup/Pictures + +rsync -e "ssh" -rc ~/Pictures/Lightroom --exclude '.DS_Store' --exclude 'Backups' luxagraf@web177.webfaction.com:/home/luxagraf/backup/Pictures + +rsync -e "ssh" -avrczh ~/Pictures/Library --progress --stats --exclude '.DS_Store' luxagraf@web177.webfaction.com:/home/luxagraf/backup/Pictures
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/daily.txt b/daily.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..eed5559 --- /dev/null +++ b/daily.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +daily + +#2014-01-25 + +Spent the morning with the girls and then took them down to Pulaski heights barbeque for lunch. We haven't been out in a month and Joe told me the other day that rumor has it Chuck is shutting down so we thought, just to be safe, we should grab a last plate of ribs. I don't actually think they're closing down though. And the new rueben sandwich is probably better than the ribs. It was nice to eat out. The girls seems to enjoy it too. Lilah started off with her hand in her mouth, which I think is some kind of anxiety thing for her, but I put her in my lap for few minutes and then she seems to loosen up and do just fine. They're both sick though, endless stream of mostly clear, but sometimes yellow snot coming out of them right now. This afternoon I spent some time with them alone, but they weren't feeling well so there was a lot of crying and complaining. They did though sit for quite a while and just stare out the window with me, listening to music and looking at the world outside. It was nice.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/daypacks for travel what kind, how to use, and what to fill it with.txt b/daypacks for travel what kind, how to use, and what to fill it with.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..637b409 --- /dev/null +++ b/daypacks for travel what kind, how to use, and what to fill it with.txt @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ +Daypacks for Travel- What Kind, How to Use, and What to Fill it With + +tags: refx, travel +date: November 20, 2013 9:42:18 AM +--- + +From <http://www.vagabondjourney.com/daypacks-for-travel-what-kind-how-to-use-and-what-to-fill-it-with/> + +# Daypacks for Travel: What Kind, How to Use, and What to Fill it With + +by Wade Shepard + +The daypack is the most used bag a traveler will have. This is the bag that travels not only on the long journeys but on the short ones as well. Daypacks carry just about everything a traveler will need to access during the course of a day of exploring, it is the place to keep the gear that is used regularly and needs to be perpetually at hand. The daypack is like a giant pocket. + +My daypack is full of my daily use supplies, the things I use regularly as I travel and collect content to blog about. The daypacks I use vary between 15 and 26 liters in size. I recommend getting a high quality daypack as the zippers on the cheaper models are prone to premature breakage (advice which I don’t usually follow myself, and know the consequences of first hand). I recommend [Lowe Alpine bags](http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travelogue/lowe-alpine-tt-tour-is-the-ultimate-travel-backpack/), but my current daypack is a Chinese no name that I picked up for $12. It does the job for now, but I question its long term endurance. If you have the cash, dumping it into a high quality, water resistant, [lockable daypack](http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travelogue/how-to-lock-a-backpack/) could prove worth it in the long run. + +Whatever bag I’m using as a daypack I always keep it packed up and ready to go. I like the idea of being able to jump out of bed in the morning, snatch up my bag, and walk out the door. Screwing around in a hotel room debating over what gear you’re going to need or not need for a day out is a real buzzkill when you’re excited to just get out in the streets to check out a new place. I’m comfortable making two or three day trips solely on the contents of my daypack. + + + +Daypack + +I don’t move gear between my bags, each thing has its place. What’s in my daypack stays in my daypack, it does not migrate to other bags or to other places in my room. My daypack has the items that I used each day when outsite exploring a place, my rucksack contains the gear that I use in my room. In this way I always know where all of my gear is at all times, and I don’t end up 25 km out of a town to discover that I left something that I want to use in a backpack that is locked up inside my hotel. + +### The crap that I fill my daypack with + +#### Travel supplies + +Notebook with destination information Water bottle +Pocket knife +Headlamp/ flashlight ([flashlight travel tip](http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travelogue/headlamp-or-flashlight-travel-tip/)) +Compass ([compass travel tip](http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travelogue/compass-navigation-through-guatemala-city/)) Hand sanitizer Wet wipes Extra t-shirt, underwear, socks Rain jacket Spoon and/ or fork +Snack +Toothbrush/ toothpaste + +#### Blogging supplies + +Notebook Digital voice recorder Camera Mini tripod Sunglasses video camera Pens and pencils Waterproof float bag for electronics +Flash drive +Extra camera battery + +### Being prepared saves money + +It would be a real pain in the ass to carry around all of the gear that you need to be prepared for a day traveling around a village or city in your hands. It is unbelievably awkward just carrying around a jacket in your hands — let alone a water bottle, food, a camera etc … and everyone learns before the age of 9 that pockets are not good places to store a lunch. The choice is thus put forth: carry a small bag full of what you need and want for the day or go unprepared. Going unprepared means relying on your surroundings for sustenance: i.e. you need to buy everything you need and want each time you need or want something. + +### Being prepared is convenient + +Having what you need with you as you travel around a place is, simply put, convenient. If you need to go find a restaurant or food stall every time you’re hungry you’re going to find yourself blowing huge amounts of time that could otherwise be spent checking out a new place. Having to find a quicky mart to buy a bottle of water every time you’re thirsty is going to delay whatever plans you have. If you need to duck for cover and wait for every little rain shower to pass because you’re not carrying rain gear you may miss out on experiencing something more interesting. Traveling so light that you’re left unprepared is a hassle. Having a daypack filled with daily essentials is an excellent way to strip down the [work of travel](http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travelogue/how-to-enjoy-traveling-strategy/) and allow for a more refined, full experience each day out on the road. + +[vagabondjourney.com __](http://www.vagabondjourney.com/daypacks-for-travel-what-kind-how-to-use-and-what-to-fill-it-with/) * by Wade Shepard diff --git a/debian 7 digital ocean running slowly.txt b/debian 7 digital ocean running slowly.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..9cb2e14 --- /dev/null +++ b/debian 7 digital ocean running slowly.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/68597/console-kit-daemon-hogging-cpu-and-ram + +Kill the console-kit-daemon process if it's still running. Remove the file + +/usr/share/dbus-1/system-service/org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.service + +(or move it to some place where you could restore it, if necessary). Reboot and you will see that console-kit-daemon no longer automatically starts up.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/django-comment-app-features.txt b/django-comment-app-features.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..59d4524 --- /dev/null +++ b/django-comment-app-features.txt @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +From NWEdible: "Your participation makes this whole thing work, so join in! Comment policy: Wheaton's Law enforced here." + +For users: + - Optional RSS/Email updates to replies (disabled by default) + - Option to sign up for newsletter as part of posting comment (disabled by default) + - optional link/website field + - Threading max 4 levels + +For me: + - auto spam filtering + - auto-close old threads. maybe old threads just get a really hard captcha + - moderation edit/delete + - load as an iframe or some other form of lazy loading + - or we have to regenerate the page more often, which could DDoS the site if I fuck it up. + + - Pull in Webmentions. Particularly interested in Facebook as a source of discussion that gets pulled automatically to the site and displayed inline with comment. Showing the chatter from Twitter feels slightly less useful. A the same time FB could be not that interesting much of the time too... Pull selected things? That's a lot of manual work. Doesn't scale. + + +Things I thought about but didn't use: + +http://posativ.org/isso/docs/quickstart/ +http://tildehash.com/?page=hashover + +forums: +http://camendesign.com/code/nononsense_forum + + +why: +http://www.jeremyscheff.com/2011/08/jekyll-and-other-static-site-generators-are-currently-harmful-to-the-free-open-source-software-movement/
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/do what you can.txt b/do what you can.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..f7079a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/do what you can.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +title: Do what you can +date: 20140727 13:04:40 +tags: #quotes #advice #work + +This is a bit like the DIY corollary to perfect is the enemy of good. + +"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." T. Roosevelt
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/dolphins.txt b/dolphins.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..3e95344 --- /dev/null +++ b/dolphins.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +Dolphins + +Dolphins only sleep with one brain hemisphere at a time. + +Amputees feel things in long gone limbs
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/domain names.txt b/domain names.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..2a34e57 --- /dev/null +++ b/domain names.txt @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +domain names + +gardeningatnight (net) +loafingcatapult +homespuncatapult +crypticcatapult +spanningtag +spanningtags +spinningtags +floatingspinnaker +Infamous monotype +longish murmur +pignut gingerly +critical acreage +solution tractor +doctagraf (doct to teach) +radiograf +followthenarrative +pavethenarrative +loafingstar +thedivingbell (no domains) +divingbell (no domains) +divingrock +divingroot +lookingforaship * +ahighwind +theinstallmentplan * +hopscotchatlas +thewindupatlas +verbingnoun +starringship +starringatlas +thewindupwall *
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/early humans saw black hole light in the night sky.txt b/early humans saw black hole light in the night sky.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..234c751 --- /dev/null +++ b/early humans saw black hole light in the night sky.txt @@ -0,0 +1,69 @@ +Early humans saw black hole light in the night sky - space - 24 September 2013 - New Scientist + +tags: refx, science +date: November 18, 2013 10:15:00 AM +--- + +From <http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24257-early-humans-saw-black-hole-light-in-the-night-sky.html?full=true#.UomMkz69KSM> + +# Early humans saw black hole light in the night sky + +Video: [Powerful jets spew out of black hole](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1aW8TDOm4A) + +_The supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy may have flared up some 2 million years ago, around the time our ancestors learned to walk upright_ + +**Editorial:** "[Black-hole eruption nearby is a warning for us all](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929361.800-blackhole-eruption-nearby-is-a-warning-for-us-all.html)" + +Some 2 million years ago, around the time our ancestors were learning to walk upright, a light appeared in the night sky, rivalling the moon for brightness and size. But it was more fuzzball than orb. The glow came from the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's heart suddenly exploding into life. + +This novel picture emerges from work announced this week at a [conference in Sydney, Australia](http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/conferences/2013/gzo/index.html), which ingeniously pieces together two seemingly unrelated, outstanding galactic puzzles. + +As well as offering a welcome way to solve both, it gives us an unexpected glimpse of how the cosmos might have appeared to Earthlings 2 million years ago (see "[Which species saw the flare?](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24257-early-humans-saw-black-hole-light-in-the-night-sky.html?full=true#bxdn24257B1)"). "That is when we had _Homo erectus_ running around Earth," says [Joss Bland-Hawthorn](http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~jbh/) of the University of Sydney, who led the team behind the work. + +It also paints supermassive black holes as unpredictable, and capable of generating some of the brightest flares in the universe, almost on a whim. That in turn throws up the possibility of modern humans being treated to a similar sight sometime in the future – thankfully we are too far away for a flare-up to pose a risk. + +### Blowing bubbles + +It may sound strange to talk about supermassive black holes as the source of the brightest lights in the universe. But this is why the centres of some galaxies, known as active galactic nuclei or AGN, shine so brightly. The idea is that as the supermassive black hole pulls matter in, this matter accretes in a surrounding disc, heats up and starts glowing. When large amounts of matter get pulled into the disc, energy is released as bright jets of particles perpendicular to the black hole's spin. + +The [Milky Way's central black hole](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24046-giant-magnet-makes-milky-way-black-hole-a-slow-eater.html), called Sagittarius A*, is currently docile, but no one knows exactly what makes a black hole turn into an AGN. One clue that our galaxy wasn't always quiet came in 2010, when astronomers using NASA's Fermi gamma-ray satellite [spotted a pair of spectacular but mysterious structures now called the Fermi bubbles](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627633.900-giant-glowing-bubbles-found-around-milky-way.html), towering 25,000 light years above and below the galactic plane. Theories to explain the bubbles range from [gamma rays emitted by annihilating dark matter](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627633.900-giant-glowing-bubbles-found-around-milky-way.html) to [supersonic winds](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23510-supersonic-cosmic-winds-blew-up-giant-galactic-bubbles.html) unleashed by intense bursts of star formation. + +Then in April, at a meeting at Stanford University in California, [Bill Mathews](http://www.astro.ucsc.edu/faculty/profiles/singleton.php?&singleton=true&cruz_id=wmathews) and Fulai Guo of the University of California, Santa Cruz, argued that the bubbles were caused by an outburst from Sagittarius A*. Their simulations showed that two intense jets of high-energy particles, like those produced by an AGN, streaming out from the vicinity of the black hole could have created the bubbles. The flare-up, they calculated, would have happened between 1 and 3 million years ago and lasted a few hundred thousand years ([arxiv.org/abs/1103.0055v3](http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.0055v3)). + +Bland-Hawthorn, who was present, heard this and immediately realised that such an outburst might solve another longstanding mystery. In 1996, astronomers discovered that a section of the Magellanic stream – a fast-moving flow of mainly hydrogen gas about 240,000 light years from the Milky Way – is glowing about 10 to 50 times as brightly as the rest. "We have never known the cause," he says. + +### Hydrogen light + +Could the same explosion that blew up the Fermi bubbles be responsible? After all, the bright part of the stream lies below the galactic centre. + +To investigate, Bland-Hawthorn teamed up with other astronomers including [Gregory Madsen](http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/people/Gregory.Madsen) of the University of Cambridge, who has studied the Magellanic stream for years. "Our telescope was picking up the signature that a lot of ultraviolet light must have illuminated the stream at some point," says Madsen. A blast of UV light could explain why part of the stream was glowing, as it can rip apart hydrogen atoms, which then recombine, emitting light in the process. + +Based on data from other galaxies with supermassive black holes that are actively spewing jets, the researchers worked out that if Sagittarius A* had been similarly active, the resulting UV light would indeed have ionised – and therefore lit up – part of the Magellanic stream [(see diagram)](http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2936/293624257.jpg). + +They then calculated the timing and energy of such an outburst, based on the time it would take for the UV light to reach the stream, the decay in the intensity of hydrogen emissions over time, and the time it takes for the emissions to reach us. It tallied well with Mathews and Guo's work to explain the Fermi bubbles ([arxiv.org/abs/1309.5455](http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.5455)). + +### Freaking out + +So an AGN at the centre of our galaxy around 2 million years ago potentially solves two mysteries at once. What's more, it might also support an emerging view of supermassive black holes. + +Many theorists say that AGNs happen only when galaxies merge. But the Milky Way hasn't had a merger for billions of years, so it seems like it is possible to get an AGN in other circumstances. + +That echoes recent modelling work by [Greg Novak](http://aramis.obspm.fr/~novak/) of the Paris Observatory in France and [Jeremiah Ostriker](http://www.astro.princeton.edu/people/webpages/jpo/) of Princeton University. They suggest that AGNs can be triggered by galactic gas moving inward after cooling by a large amount, and by unstable discs of gas and dust that break apart and fall towards the black hole ([_The Astrophysical Journal_, doi.org/fngbsd](http://doi.org/fngbsd)). That would make AGN flare-ups much more erratic and unpredictable. + +Novak is excited by the latest work. "It indicates that just a few million years ago – an instant in galactic terms – the Milky Way had a really major outburst of AGN activity. Amazing!" he says. + +It is possible that Sagittarius A* could go AGN again, says Bland-Hawthorn. That would be catastrophic for any worlds near the galactic centre. But modern Earthlings, like their ancestors, would simply see a beautiful, though strange, sight. "You'd really be freaked out," he says. + +_This article will appear in print under the headline "Early people saw black hole's light"_ + +### Which species saw the flare? + +In a twist for our galaxy's history, it seems the Milky Way's black hole flared up 2 million years ago, forming a bright moon-sized smudge in Earth's southern sky. Who – or what – saw it? + +Two million years ago was an important time in human evolution, says anthropologist [Chris Stringer](http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/about-science/staff-directory/earth-sciences/c-stringer/index.html) of the Natural History Museum in London. "It was the beginning of the genus Homo. Stone toolmaking had already begun, but the brain was only beginning to enlarge." + +_Homo erectus_ emerged around 1.9 million years ago, so would have had a ringside view if the black hole erupted then. Any earlier and [_Homo habilis_](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22151-fossils-confirm-three-early-humans-roamed-africa.html), the first of our large-brained ancestors, would have watched wide-eyed. It might even have been [_Australopithecus sediba_](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829134.000-hints-of-oldest-human-skin-found-on-apelike-ancestor.html), a close relative whose fossils were recently discovered in South Africa. + +Before that, the likely spectator was [_Australopithecus africanus_](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23532-early-hominins-couldnt-have-heard-modern-speech.html). None of these creatures would have [immortalised what they saw as art](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22585-prehistoric-cinema-a-silver-screen-on-the-cave-wall.html), though. "The majority opinion is that artistic behaviour only comes within the last 100,000 years," says Stringer. + +Since the galactic centre is visible mainly from the southern skies, only creatures living south of 20º above the equator would have seen it. Most of our upright ancestors would have roamed such latitudes. diff --git a/expertise does not have units.txt b/expertise does not have units.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..299b835 --- /dev/null +++ b/expertise does not have units.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +Expertise Does Not Have Units + +From [Expertise Does Not Have Units](http://bettermess.com/expertise-does-not-have-units/): + + +Sometimes, the problem with achieving a goal set for you by a ten-year-old is that you have no idea what to do at the finish line. The world changed and I missed it. I was an expert and I was tired and bored. For me, the sweet spot of expertise hovered around the 70% mark. Being an expert is boring. While there’s always more to learn and new problems to solve, nothing is so thrilling as problems that make me fail. The moments when I struggled the most were the moments when I was scientist. I was at my best when comprehension was just out of reach. + +Expertise is a funny thing. There’s no way to measure our progress towards obtaining it, yet we always feel far from our goal. When I did finally feel like an expert it hardly felt valuable enough to hold on to. I only learned afterward that expertise is not a destination but a vehicle. It’s the golden ring that makes us jump higher and reach further. In the end, it’s just a ring. + +I can’t blame that little boy though. How could he know that he was already a scientist?
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/famous cooks.txt b/famous cooks.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..4764b02 --- /dev/null +++ b/famous cooks.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +Famous cooks + +Wikipedia: François Vatel (1631, Paris – April 24, 1671) was a "Maître d'hôtel" (translates as "Master of the House"), famous for creating Chantilly cream, a sweet, vanilla-flavoured whipped cream, for an extravagant banquet for 2,000 people hosted in honour of Louis XIV by Louis, the great Condé in April 1671 at the Château de Chantilly; hence the name crème Chantilly. + +At this same banquet, Vatel, the consummate perfectionist, was supposedly so distraught about the lateness of the fish—the banquet was to be held on a Friday—and about other mishaps that he committed suicide by running himself through with a sword. According to some versions of the story, his body was discovered by an aide who came to tell him of the arrival of the fish. His death was treated as a national tragedy.[1]
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/fermented foods, microbiota, and mental health.txt b/fermented foods, microbiota, and mental health.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9173c5b --- /dev/null +++ b/fermented foods, microbiota, and mental health.txt @@ -0,0 +1,456 @@ +--- +title: Fermented foods, microbiota, and mental health- ancient practice meets nutritional psychiatry +date: 2013-11-18T03:43:03Z +source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3904694/ +tags: science + +--- + + +Abstract +The purposeful application of fermentation in food and beverage preparation, as a means to provide palatability, nutritional value, preservative, and medicinal properties, is an ancient practice. Fermented foods and beverages continue to make a significant contribution to the overall patterns of traditional dietary practices. As our knowledge of the human microbiome increases, including its connection to mental health (for example, anxiety and depression), it is becoming increasingly clear that there are untold connections between our resident microbes and many aspects of physiology. Of relevance to this research are new findings concerning the ways in which fermentation alters dietary items pre-consumption, and in turn, the ways in which fermentation-enriched chemicals (for example, lactoferrin, bioactive peptides) and newly formed phytochemicals (for example, unique flavonoids) may act upon our own intestinal microbiota profile. Here, we argue that the consumption of fermented foods may be particularly relevant to the emerging research linking traditional dietary practices and positive mental health. The extent to which traditional dietary items may mitigate inflammation and oxidative stress may be controlled, at least to some degree, by microbiota. It is our contention that properly controlled fermentation may often amplify the specific nutrient and phytochemical content of foods, the ultimate value of which may associated with mental health; furthermore, we also argue that the microbes (for example, Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria species) associated with fermented foods may also influence brain health via direct and indirect pathways. + +Introduction +‘The processes required for fermented foods were present on earth when man appeared on the scene… When we study these foods, we are in fact studying the most intimate relationships between man, microbe and foods.’ [1] + +Prof. Keith H. Steinkraus, Cornell University, 1993 + +As highlighted in the quotation, our Paleolithic ancestors had plenty of opportunity for the consumption of food products (for example, honey, fruits or berries, and their juices) that had been unknowingly subjected to natural microbial fermentation. Without knowledge of microbes, our ancestors recognized, over time, the palatability, preservative, analgesic, and mentally stimulating or sedating qualities of fermented foods and beverages [2]. Thus, the stage was set for the purposeful application of fermentation to provide value in the areas of human nutrition, traditional medicine, and culture (ceremonies, and so on) [3,4]. It is difficult to say with certainty when intentional fermentation began in earnest; however, sophisticated measurements of the chemical content within ancient Neolithic vessels suggest intentional fermentation of fruit, rice, or honey beverages has been in common practice for close to 10,000 years [5]. As agriculture expanded, so too did intentional fermentation techniques. Beyond the clear references to alcohol production, it is now obvious that household and artisanal fermentation of cereals, dairy, vegetables, fish, seafood and meats were a significant part of ancestral dietary practices [6]. + +Modern advances in chemical preservation, refrigeration, and transportation efficiency have not resulted in the abandonment of fermented foods. At least in traditional dietary practices, fermented foods and beverages remain widespread, currently accounting for approximately one-third of the human diet globally [7]. Moreover, as scientists continue to uncover health-promoting properties of ancestral dietary patterns (for example, the Mediterranean diet, the traditional Japanese diet, and hunter-gatherer diets), by extension there is a renewed examination of the fermented foods that are so often a part of such ancient diets [8]. Emerging research, as reviewed here, indicates that fermentation may magnify the known benefits of a wide variety of foods and herbs, influencing the bioavailability and activity of the chemical constituents. In addition, as our knowledge of the human microbiome increases (the intestinal microbiota in particular), it is becoming increasingly clear that there are untold connections between the ways in which microbes act upon dietary items pre-consumption, and in turn, the ways in which these fermented dietary items influence our own microbiota. + +Here, we review and synthesize various lines of investigation related to fermented foods, intestinal microbiota, and mental outlook. We argue that the consumption of fermented foods may be particularly relevant to the emerging research linking traditional dietary practices and positive mental health. It is our contention that fermentation may amplify the specific nutrient or phytonutrient content of foods, the ultimate value of which is associated with mental health; furthermore, we also argue that the microbes associated with fermented foods may also influence brain health via direct and indirect pathways. + +Traditional diets and mental health +The shift away from traditional lifestyles has been linked to increased rates of depression and other mental health disorders [9-11]. Among the variables that might afford protective or resiliency effects against mental health disorders (depression in particular), diet has emerged as at least one strong candidate [12]. Superficially, it would seem obvious, given the brain’s dependence upon nutrients for its structure and function (including the micronutrients and non-nutrient dietary antioxidants, for example polyphenols, that run the antioxidant defense system) that nutrition should be a target of research in mental health. Remarkably, this area of research, now known as nutritional psychiatry, is one that has been historically neglected or the subject of poorly designed studies. However, there have been tremendous strides in recent years and the research connecting mental health and nutrition has become increasingly robust. Indeed, a recent 5-year prospective study (n?=?23,020) has shown that unhealthy maternal and early postnatal dietary patterns (for example, processed and refined foods, high-sugar beverages, high-sodium snacks) elevate the risk of behavioral and emotional problems in children [13]. + +Traditional dietary practices, often exemplified by Mediterranean and Japanese models, are typically characterized by (relative to Western practices) higher intakes of fruits and vegetables, fish and seafood, cereals with limited processing, fiber, and only modest amounts of dairy and lean meats [14]. A variety of population studies have linked adherence to traditional dietary patterns with lowered risk of anxiety or depression [15-20]. Among the more convincing of these studies are the recent prospective investigations showing that stronger adherence to traditional healthy dietary patterns is associated with a 25 to 30% lower risk of depression [16,17]. Traditional Japanese dietary practices, where fermented soy products are specifically linked to adherence, have also been associated with lower rates of depressive symptoms [21,22]. Alcohol has deservedly received much attention in the link between problematic consumption and a higher risk of depression. However, when consumed in modest amounts (5 to 15 g per day) as part of traditional dietary practices, alcohol (red wine in particular) has been associated with a lower risk of depression [23]. Indeed, light to moderate alcohol consumption has been associated with lower systemic inflammation, a finding not evident in those with depression [24]. + +Epidemiological studies show that there exists an elevated risk of depressive symptoms in healthy adults with blood chemistry indicative of insulin resistance [25]. Depressive symptoms correlate with higher fasting and stimulated glucose levels, even in the absence of an association with adiposity in adolescents at risk of type II diabetes [26]. This is of relevance when viewed along with a rapidly growing body of research highlighting the type-II-diabetes protective properties of traditional dietary practices [27]. As we will discuss, the intestinal microbiota, via a number of mechanisms, may play a role in mediating the glycemic and mood related effects of the Western dietary pattern [28]. + +Specific items within traditional dietary patterns have been individually associated with protection against depression and, experimentally, these components have also demonstrated antidepressant properties. Examples include, but are not limited to soy foods, turmeric, cocoa, green tea, coffee, blueberries, pomegranate, and honey. The isolated polyphenols and other phytochemicals within these foods have also been documented to provide antidepressive properties in experimental models [29-38]. In addition, specific nutrients such as magnesium, zinc, vitamin C, folic acid, and vitamin B12, have also been connected to resiliency against depression or improvement in depressive symptoms [39-42]. + +The mechanisms by which required nutrients, such as the aforementioned vitamins and minerals, influence mood can be explained in part by their role in the production of neurotransmitters [43]. However, the connection between mood and non-essential dietary components (for example, phytochemicals) has been the subject of intense scrutiny; their role in the antioxidant defense system as well as their ability to provide anti-inflammatory support appears to be at play [44]. Advances in the understanding of the pathophysiology of mood and anxiety disorders have provided a more complete picture of the inducing role played by the tandem of oxidative stress and low-grade inflammation. Elevations in markers of inflammation (for example, cytokines, C-reactive protein), and overwhelm of the normal antioxidant defense system, are no longer dismissed as mere consequence in emotional disorders [45]. The burden of oxidative stress and inflammation is emerging as a viscous cycle that can directly influence mood, and the combination of the two appears to be both a cause and a consequence of depression [46,47]. When levels of body-wide inflammatory cytokines are elevated, they can subsequently signal the production of inflammatory cytokines within the central nervous system via microglia activation. Chronic activation of microglia can compromise neuronal functioning by setting in motion a cascade of further inflammation and oxidative stress [48]. The end result may manifest as compromised intra and extracellular neuronal communication. + +Inflammation and mood pathways +In this exciting area of research, one of the open questions is how chronic inflammation might be initiated and maintained in illnesses such as depression, and what the gut has to do with this. Emerging studies show that the normally very selective intestinal barrier may be compromised in depression (and in numerous conditions where depression is often a hallmark symptom) [49-56]. Psychological stress and exhaustive exercise have been shown to increase the permeability of the intestinal barrier [57-59]. However, a Westernized diet high in fat and sugar has also been shown to cause a more porous intestinal lining, the consequences of which include systemic access to food antigens, environmental toxins, and structural components of microbes, such as lipopolysaccharide endotoxin (LPS) [60]. The latter agent, LPS, is particularly important regarding depression; even relatively small elevations in systemic LPS levels have been shown to provoke depressive symptoms and disturb blood glucose control [61-67]. Endotoxins such as LPS can decrease the availability of tryptophan and zinc, thereby negatively influencing neurotransmission [68,69]. Moreover, systemic LPS can elevate inflammation and oxidative stress. Traditional dietary practices have completely divergent effects of blood LPS levels; significant reductions (38%) have been noted after a one-month adherence to a prudent (traditional) diet, while the Western diet provokes LPS elevations [70]. These and other findings help establish mechanisms whereby the LPS-lowering, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory properties of broad traditional dietary practices, as well as specific components within them, can help provide mood support. Indeed, when the limitation of intestinal absorption is overcome, individual phenolic structures have been shown, at least experimentally, to curb the breakdown of central neurotransmitters, mimicking the proposed mechanistic properties of some primary antidepressant medications [71,72]. As we will discuss, enhanced bioavailability via fermentation may therefore be an important factor in food (or herbs) as medicine. + +Microbiota and mental health +Related to the differences in traditional versus contemporary Westernized dietary patterns and mental health is the role of the intestinal microbiota. A decade ago, prior to the scientific hypotheses of Logan et al.[73,74], the notion that the intentional manipulation of the intestinal microbiota could provide therapeutic value to human depressive and fatigue states was, at the very least, outlandish. However, in the ensuing years, many of the mechanisms first proposed by Logan and colleagues (as listed, adapted from [73,74]) whereby beneficial microbes could influence mood or fatigue, have been examined experimentally. + +•Direct protection of the intestinal barrier; + +•Influence on local and systemic antioxidant status, reduction in lipid peroxidation; + +•Direct, microbial-produced neurochemical production, for example, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA); + +•Indirect influence on neurotransmitter or neuropeptide production; + +•Prevention of stress-induced alterations to overall intestinal microbiota; + +•Direct activation of neural pathways between gut and brain; + +•Limitation of inflammatory cytokine production; + +•Modulation of neurotrophic chemicals, including brain-derived neurotrophic factor; + +•Limitation of carbohydrate malabsorption; + +•Improvement of nutritional status, for example, omega-3 fatty acids, minerals, dietary phytochemicals; + +•Limitation of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth; + +•Reduction of amine or uremic toxin burden; + +•Limitation of gastric or intestinal pathogens (for example, Helicobacter pylori); + +•Analgesic properties. + +Moreover, preliminary placebo-controlled human studies have shown that oral probiotic microbes can decrease anxiety, diminish perceptions of stress, and improve mental outlook [75]. In the context of our later discussion of fermented foods and their intersection with the gut-brain-microbiota connection, a brief summary of this microbiota-brain research is necessary. For interested readers, more detailed reviews specific to the scientific advances exploring direct and indirect relationships between intestinal microbes and anxiety or depression have recently been published [76,77]. + +Viewed strictly from the nutritional perspective, experimental studies have shown that the administration of probiotic bacteria to laboratory chow can increase peripheral tryptophan levels, and alter dopamine and serotonin turnover in the frontal cortex and limbic system [78]. In addition, probiotic-fortified laboratory chow increases the tissue levels of omega-3 fatty acids [79], and the omega-3 fatty acids play a critical role in communication in and between nerve cells. The consumption of omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid in particular, has been linked to positive mental outlook and reduction in mental distress in human beings [80]. Levels of other anti-inflammatory fatty acids, such as gamma-linolenic acid, also increase in the human plasma when co-administered with probiotics [81]. It is also becoming increasingly clear that the extent to which phytochemical absorption can provide systemic antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity is controlled, at least to some degree, by resident intestinal microbiota [82-84]. Finally, probiotics and the overall profile of the intestinal microbiota can influence tissue levels of mood-regulating minerals, such as magnesium and zinc [85,86]. + +As mentioned, intestinal microbiota may also have far-reaching effects related to glycemic control; our commensal gut microbes may contribute to healthy glucose tolerance. Indeed, the oral administration of Bifidobacterium lactis, and, in separate research, the combination of Lactobacillus curvatus and Lactobacillus plantarum, can improve fasting insulin levels and glucose turnover rates, even in the presence of a high-fat diet [87,88]. Again, the minimization of the detrimental LPS burden by beneficial microbes appears to be a central mechanism in the promotion of normal glycemic control [89]. For example, bifidobacteria and other beneficial microbes can prevent the efflux of LPS into systemic circulation, while in human beings, the administration of probiotics may diminish systemic access of gut-derived LPS and also reduce reactivity to the endotoxin [90]. + +Beyond direct nutritional and glycemic effects, there are other intriguing ways in which probiotics and the intestinal microbiota have been connected to the brain. When a strain of Lactobacillus rhamnosus is administered to healthy animals under stress, there is a reduction in anxiety and depression-like behaviors in experimental models, such as the elevated plus maze and forced swim tests. These behavioral changes were associated with alterations in the GABA system of the brain in the probiotic group, matching the known effects of antidepressant or anxiolytic chemical agents (for example, anxiolytic agents such as benzodiazepines work at GABA receptors) [91]. Importantly, the changes in behavior and brain chemistry were largely extinguished with vagotomy, suggesting direct lines of communication from gut to brain [90]. Additional research shows that Lactobacillus helveticus and Bifidobacterium longum added to animal drinking water can increase nerve cell resiliency and reduce apoptosis during conditions of experimental physiological stress [92]. Moreover, oral Mycobacterium vaccae, a soil-based microorganism widely distributed in nature, which can easily find its way onto edible plants, has been shown in experimental models to improve cognitive function and diminish anxiety-like behavior among animals [93]. + +There are also a number of studies involving mice reared in germ-free environments, the results of which seem to demonstrate a direct role of intestinal microbiota on behavior. Compared withconventional animals raised with the normal range of intestinal microbiota, these animals display the murine equivalent of what might be decreased anxiety [94-96]. Meanwhile, supplementation with Bifidobacterium appears to attenuate an exaggerated stress response and maintain adequate levels of the neuropeptide brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), levels of which are known to be low in depression [97]. It is also noteworthy that even mild chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract can provoke anxiety and diminish BDNF production in animals [98]. Furthermore, supplementation with Bifidobacterium also provides systemic protection against lipid peroxidation and decreases brain monoamine oxidase activity, thereby potentially increasing intersynaptic neurotransmitter levels [99]. + +Rodent studies have provided compelling insights; however, they have countless shortcomings as a reflection of human microbiota, human dietary patterns, and the ultimate intertwining of these variables with complex mental health disorders. Far more convincing research, albeit very preliminary at this juncture, comes from published human studies involving probiotic administration. The first formal investigation of a probiotic and human mental outlook involved 132 otherwise healthy adults consuming Lactobacillus casei fermented beverage for three weeks; vs. placebo, significant improvement in mood scores were noted upon the among those with the higher baseline depressive symptoms [100]. A separate placebo-controlled pilot study, one using the same Lactobacillus casei probiotic (powder form), involved 39 chronic fatigue syndrome patients. After two months, depression scores remained unchanged between the groups, however Beck Anxiety Inventory scores showed significant improvements in anxiety versus placebo [101]. + +Michaël Messaoudi and colleagues from France evaluated a Lactobacillus helveticus and Bifidobacterium longum combination probiotic, which was orally administered for one month (n?=?55) in a placebo-controlled study[102]. Among the otherwise healthy adults, significant improvements in depression, anger, anxiety, and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol versus placebo were noted. A concurrent experimental arm of the study also confirmed that the probiotic added to the dietary of rodents was effective in reducing behaviors indicative of anxiety. Messaoudi’s group performed a secondary analysis, looking specifically at those with the lowest baseline urinary free cortisol (n?=?25). Indeed, the results once again showed improvement with Lactobacillus helveticus and Bifidobacterium longum versus controls (particularly in somatization, depression and anger-hostility), and among this low cortisol sub-group the overall benefits in anxiety and depression were pronounced over time [103]. In addition, a study involving 44 patients with irritable bowel syndrome showed thatoral consumption of a prebiotic fiber (trans-galactooligosaccharide) significantly reduced anxiety in conjunction with marked elevations in fecal bifidobacteria levels [104]. + +Finally, a small placebo-controlled study involving functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has demonstrated that the one-month consumption of a fermented food containing Bifidobacterium animalis subsp lactis, Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, and Lactococcus lactis subsp lactis can influence brain activity versus baseline [105]. Specifically, the researchers reported that the group who received the fermented dairy product, versus unfermented counterpart and the no-intervention controls, affected activity of brain regions that control central processing of emotion and sensation. Enthusiasm concerning this study runs high, with editorials in mainstream journals claiming that this fMRI study, ‘provides the first objective evidence that gut commensal and/or probiotic bacteria influence brain activity in healthy humans’,[106]. The study, of course, did not provide any such objective evidence concerning ingested bacteria; it was a study involving a transformed milk product, not an isolated probiotic powder. Despite attempts to keep caloric and macronutrient content equal, a fermented milk product is not the same as an unfermented milk product in only its microbiota. Within the study, there was no evidence of a change in gut microbiota profile via consumption of the fermented product; however, more importantly, the fermentation of milk significantly alters bioactive peptides and other chemicals that are well capable of influencing central nervous system function [107-110]. In short, objective evidence that ingested probiotic bacteria alone (or diet-induced shifts in commensal bacteria) can influence human brain activity has yet to be published. + +Traditional diets and microbiota +Before proceeding to make the case for a more focused investigation of fermented foods for mental health, it is important to discuss the available research on traditional dietary patterns and their ability to influence intestinal microbiota. It is becoming increasingly clear that indigenous or traditional dietary patterns are directly inclusive of many bacterium species that might be considered to have probiotic potential. Indeed, it is estimated that 35% of all lactic acid bacteria isolated from raw fruits and vegetables can survive gastric conditions [111]. The recent study on the anti-anxiety effects of the soil microorganism Mycobacterium vaccae in animals [93] suggests that we would do well to broaden our considerations of the classically defined beneficial microbes, that is, beyond that of exclusively the Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria genera. + +One of the first studies examining the effects of traditional diet, 30 years ago, looked at differences in the fecal microbiota of rural Japanese versus Canadian urbanites. The researchers noted higher counts of Bifidobacterium species and Lactobacilli in the rural Japanese, a group that largely maintained a traditional high-fiber diet rich in fermented foods, vegetables, and fish. The investigators used culture technique to examine the microbiota, and despite its limitations as a means to reflect the overall intestinal microbiome, there were some interesting findings. The amounts of Clostridia species in the Canadians were higher, and overall there was greater biodiversity (more genera and species) in the rural-dwelling Japanese [112]. As discussed later, this has been the primary finding of more sophisticated contemporary studies using DNA sequencing of stool samples, that is, there is more bacterial diversity in those consuming traditional diets. In follow-up, this research group reported on the differences in fecal microbiota among older adults residing in Tokyo versus elderly rural Japanese maintaining a high-fiber traditional diet inclusive of fermented foods. The results again showed higher numbers of Bifidobacterium species among the rural dwellers and lower amounts of Clostridium species, Clostridium perfringens in particular [113]. + +Recent DNA techniques allow for a more broad evaluation of the intestinal microbiome as mediated by diet. Researchers have shown significant differences in the fecal microbiota of Western European children versus rural African children living in an environment resembling that of our Neolithic ancestors. Overall, there were fewer potentially pathogenic bacteria, and a far more diverse range of microbes in rural Africans who maintain a traditional lifestyle and consume traditional foods [114]. It is noteworthy that a variety of fermented foods are consumed by those living in the rural African area which was studied, and there are numerous lactic acid bacteria present on plant foods within this traditional diet [115]. Separate work has uncovered distinct differences in microbial groups and their functional genes (for example, those governing metabolism of amino acids) in US urban dwellers versus villagers living in Africa and South America. Here again, the fecal microbiota of US urbanites showed far less diversity than that of villagers in these distinct regions. Diet, rather than hygiene per se, was reported to be the key spark for the development of intestinal microbiota structure [116]. Remarkably, investigations of highly preserved human coprolites (ancient stool samples retrieved from archeological sites) have demonstrated that their overall microbiome more closely resembles that of modern humans living in traditional rural settlements than that of the contemporary urban dweller [117]. + +What then, are the broad implications of loss of microbial diversity as a consequence of modernization? Detailed dietary analysis in combination with DNA sequencing of stool samples has its advantages. These techniques have allowed researchers to determine that long-term dietary patterns largely determine the main phyla of the gut microbial profile [118]. However, psychological stress or short-term dietary changes are capable of inducing species-level changes to the intestinal microbiota [119]. While the administration of singular or small groups of select beneficial microbes may not have a major impact on stable phyla, probiotic intervention studies (as discussed previously) have taught us that species-level application of microbes are not without clinical relevance. A single strain of Lactobacillus, one that might be carried with traditional foods, may improve overall microbial diversity [120]. The administration of a single Bifidobacterium strain, one among a genera commonly found in fermented dairy products, can increase the intestinal quantity of completely separate Bifidobacterium species, and Lactobacilli overall [121,122]. + +The potential of fermented foods +Thus far, we have highlighted that depression and other mental health disorders are characterized by chronic, low-grade inflammation and oxidative stress. Conversely, a traditional diet rich in antioxidant, anti-inflammatory foods may confer some level of protection against depression. We have also noted that an intestinal ‘inflammatory microbiome’ appears to exist, one that may contribute to altered mood via intestinal permeability, systemic LPS burden, and even direct-to-brain microbe communication. Such an inflammatory microbiome may be facilitated, at least in part, by Western dietary habits. Research shows that high-fat or high-sugar and low nutrient-value foods are commonly consumed by those with depression, anxiety, and high levels of chronic distress [123-125], thus contributing to the likelihood of an inflammatory microbiome. Preliminary research in rodents and human beings suggests that the behavioral consequences of an inflammatory microbiome can be offset by the administration of beneficial microbes. All this leads us full circle to the ancient Neolithic vessels in asking to what extent fermented foods or beverages might contribute to mental health. We are certainly not the first to ask this question in the broad sense; in 1938, Lloyd Arnold, MD, aptly a professor of both preventive medicine and bacteriology at the University of Illinois, pondered to what extent ancient diets, fermented foods, and their effect on the ‘bacterial flora of the intra-intestinal contents’ converged to promote health [126]. + +Today, scientific advances allow for some answers in the direction toward the potential of fermented foods. It is well established that with traditional dietary patterns, fermentation can magnify protein quality [127] and the bioavailabity of mood-regulating B vitamins, magnesium, and zinc [128-131]. The effect of diet on intestinal microbiota may also extend to vitamin D levels [132]. However, it is also becoming clear that the Lactobacillus species isolated from traditional fermented foods are biologically active in other ways, for example, upon oral consumption, Lactobacillus plantarum strains isolated from traditional Chinese fermented foods provide strong antioxidant protection in animals [133]. Fermentation of fruit and herbal smoothies with Lactobacillus plantarum and other strains has been shown to preserve their polyphenolic compounds and vitamin C, and as expected, this enhances subsequent free radical scavenging activity that would otherwise be lost with storage [134]. Fermented soymilk also has a more pronounced antioxidant capacity than unfermented soymilk, and this activity is further enhanced by the synergistic application of both lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria together versus only Lactobacilli or Bifidobacterium strains alone [135]. + +The fermentation of fiber-rich components of traditional diets, such as, soy germ, wheat germ, rice bran, or breads made via traditional fermentation techniques, have been shown to produce novel bioactive compounds capable of producing beneficial immune, glycemic, and anti-inflammatory activities [136-139]. In the case of fermented rice bran, where enhanced phenolic availability has been noted, there is specific experimental evidence indicating beneficial mental properties via the bioactive compounds. More specifically, compared with controls, oral administration of fermented rice bran extract reduced experimental fatigue and stress [140,141]. Fermentation of rice bran, and other traditional foods, such as mung beans, buckwheat sprouts, and lentils, is known to increase the available GABA content significantly [142-144]. Whereas synthetic GABA in oral form has been classically dismissed as of limited benefit due to absorption issues, research has reported value of the oral administration of GABA derived from Lactobacillus hilgardii fermentation in anxiety reduction in human beings, and antidepressant activity via the administration of GABA-rich red yeast rice [145,146]. + +Recent evidence suggests that the health-promoting target of flavonoids is directed toward the human gut bacterial metagenomes, and that these benefits have an evolutionary origin. Functional analysis using clusters of orthologous groups of bacteria target proteins suggests that flavonoids regulate the metabolism of gut microbiota [147]. Experimental research has shown that when common dietary polyphenols are subjected to fermentation, the newly formed biotransformation phytochemicals are more capable of causing a beneficial shift in microbial growth stimulation [148]. In positioning fermented foods as worthy of discussion for cognitive and mental benefits, recent comparative research involving fermented and non-fermented foods and herbal ingredients is worthy of consideration. Researchers have examined the in vivo properties of an herbal blend typically used in traditional medicine to treat inflammatory disorders, comparing its effects in the unfermented and fermented form. Blood LPS levels were significantly lower when treated with the fermented blend, as was C-reactive protein, a primary marker of systemic inflammation. There was also a significant reduction in LPS-induced intestinal permeability and a significant rise in stool Lactobacillus species, neither of which was noted with the unfermented blend [149]. + +Similar research has been documented with fermented and unfermented herbs used for gastrointestinal disorders, that is, more pronounced anti-inflammatory activity and minimization of LPS-induced gene expression with the fermented blend [150]. In separate work involving a singular traditional food or medicinal agent, the anti-inflammatory botanical Sophora flavescens, researchers, again using LPS as the inducing agent, found a more pronounced anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity with the fermented form [151]. Recently red wine has been shown to increase Bifidobacterium levels, which in turn correlates with lower serum LPS concentrations [152]. Fermented grape pomace yields more total antioxidants and antioxidant activity than its unfermented counterpart [153]. Remarkably, even fermented fish oil, an agent with well-documented anti-inflammatory and mood-support properties, has been shown to provide an enhanced anti-inflammatory activity versus its unfermented counterpart [154]. Given our previous discussions concerning LPS-induced inflammation, intestinal permeability and glycemic control, it should not be surprising, perhaps, that fermented (versus unfermented) dairy products can improve glucose metabolism and improve antioxidant status in human beings [155,156]. + +The connection between fermented dairy products and the growth of beneficial intestinal microbes has been well described. However, the findings that (non-dairy) fermented foods and herbs can have a positive influence on the intestinal microbiota are important in that there may be an influence on longer-term gut-brain communication. For example, isomalto-oligosaccharides are found in traditional foods (for example, honey, sake, miso, and soy sauce) and have been shown in animals and human beings to have a beneficial effect in promoting the growth of Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli[157]. Providing just a few examples, fermented (versus unfermented) burdock has been shown to significantly promote the growth of bifidobacteria [158]; similar findings have been reported for fermented versus unfermented soy [159]. The species-level microbiota within local fermented foods is reflected in stool samples of the human host [160]. When researchers make discoveries such as that showing that a Lactobacillus pentosus strain derived from fermented cabbage (kimchi) can improve mental functioning and hippocampal BDNF production in animals [161], the entire mosaic takes on greater meaning. It suggests that we are only scratching the surface in our understanding of the relationship between potentially beneficial food-derived microbes and brain health. + +Conclusions +The purposeful application of fermentation for food preservation, palatability, and other reasons is an ancient art. Modern research is highlighting the potential value of ancestral dietary practices on mental health, and on resiliency against depression in particular. At the same time, there has been tremendous progress toward better understanding of the role played by the low-grade inflammation and the intestinal microbiome in human health and mental well-being [162,163]. Evidence would suggest that the two major themes of these mostly separate highways of research should converge; in other words, the fermented foods so often included in traditional dietary practices have the potential to influence brain health by virtue of the microbial action that has been applied to the food or beverage, and by the ways in which the fermented food or beverage directly influences our own microbiota. This could manifest, behaviorally, via magnified antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity, reduction of intestinal permeability and the detrimental effects of LPS, improved glycemic control, positive influence on nutritional status (and therefore neurotransmission and neuropeptide production), direct production of GABA, and other bioactive chemicals, as well as a direct role in gut-to-brain communication via a beneficial shift in the intestinal microbiota itself. + +In this discussion, we may unwittingly give the impression that fermentation is exclusively a beneficial application to food and beverage production. Such is not the case and not all forms of fermentation or fermented foods can be painted with the same brush. For example, certain microorganisms (for example, fungi) associated with pickled foods may enhance the production of N-nitroso compounds with potential carcinogenic properties [164]. Also, although agmatine and other polyamines found in fermented meats, fish, and certain beverages have been shown to have a variety of experimental benefits related to brain health [165,166], a safe level of intake remains unknown [165]. However, as outlined in our review, there is more than ample justification to follow the microbe-nutrition and gut-brain research pathways into convergence. The clinical world of mental health involves one where consumption of convenient, high-fat, or high-sugar foods is the norm; these foods, at odds with our evolutionary past, are not only undermining optimal nutritional status, they have untold effects on the microbiome and ultimately the brain. 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\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/first hike.txt b/first hike.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..b8f528b --- /dev/null +++ b/first hike.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +Despite my personal willingness to suffer in order to avoid tourist hordes abroad, contrary to what some of my friends think I am not, by nature a mascochist. Here in Georgia I tend to do things like walk or hike in mornings or evenings. Especially if I have my family with me. + +This morning we walked through the bog forests of Sandy Creek, slipping through the mud and down limbs from the two inches of rain that fell the night before. And it feel in a matter of minutes, great torrenting sheets of rain that caused flash floods in some places and overruns our storm windows to fill and leak into the house and they do when I forget to close them before a storm, which I inevitably do. + +My children's first hike turned out to be wildly successful even without the precense of the much sought after turtle, which seems thus far, to be their favorite animal. Or maybe just their favorite animal word. It can be hard to say for sure when they like something and when they just like the word for something and when those to things are the same Korzibsky be damned. + +In either case they both hiked about half a mile with almost no complaint, which strikes me as pretty good for being 22 months old. diff --git a/food-storage.txt b/food-storage.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9926817 --- /dev/null +++ b/food-storage.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +#### Storage Specifics for Different Vegetables + +Fresh garlic. Do NOT put in plastic. Will last a month or more. + +Onions. Store in a dark, dry area to keep them from sprouting. Do not store onions and potatoes together as the potatoes will sprout. + +*Cabbage*. Keep cool. Cabbage will last several weeks as long as you protect it from bruising too much. + +*Avocados*. They are fairly susceptible to bruising. The best I found to store them was to put them in tube socks, then in a gear hammock on top of sturdy produce such as potatoes or onions. If you buy them in varying stages of ripeness you can enjoy them over a week or more. + +*Carrots and celery*. Wrap in aluminum foil, but don't totally seal the packet, leave little openings at the end for moisture to escape (otherwise, they'll just rot). They may dry out some, so rejuvenate in water. They'll easily last one week, often 2 weeks or more. + +*Cucumbers*. Pad these well so they don't bruise, and they will last at least a week; often two weeks. + +*Summer squash and zucchini*. Small ones last much better than larger ones; they will last 10 days or sometimes longer. If they are starting to wilt a bit, use them in a cooked dish instead of eating raw you won't notice that they're not crisp. + +*Broccoli and cauliflower*. These can both last a week, providing they've never been refrigerated. For some reason, they seem to be really quick to spoil if they've ever been refrigerated and are then taken out of it. Broccoli may get a little yellow and cauliflower may get some black spots -- just cut both out. And as with summer squash, if either is starting to wilt, use it in a cooked dish and it won't be noticeable. + +*Lettuce*. My experience with lettuce is that it is so susceptible to bruising, which then quickly causes rot, that it’s best to eat it within a day or two of buying it. diff --git a/free camping b/free camping new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aaf803d --- /dev/null +++ b/free camping @@ -0,0 +1,272 @@ +--- +title: 63mph — Stories · from Portland, OR · 496 days... +date: 2014-12-27T13:36:38Z +source: http://63mph.com/post/94534670378/stories-from-portland-or-496-days +tags: camping, research + +--- + +· 8 months ago + +Stories · from Portland, OR · 496 days in + +Building A Wheel Estate Empire + +Look, I'm a lover, but one thing I hate is paying for camping. I didn't start living in my van to keep paying rent. Spending $15 a night to camp ($450 a month) is the equivalent of paying rent, which is unacceptable to me. + +Below is my process for finding free camping anywhere… these are the steps I'm using to build my Wheel Estate Empire. + +**Rural Camping** + +The single most important step to finding (great) free camping is deciding to stop paying for camping. Since there are so many convenient, paid campsites, if you're not committed to finding free(dom), you won't find it. + +1) Get your mind right. Hunting for free camping with great views and ample resources (water & wood) is _work_. Think of the hunt as equal to the energy required to cook a good meal or have a thoughtful conversation. If you don't go into the hunt with these energy expectations, frustration will certainly ensue. + +[_Note_: The upside of this energy (and potentially gas) expense is the free spot will be yours forever. It will be your little secret, your little treasure. Put an X on your map and smile every time you think about it… then share it with those you love.] + +2) Get yourself as detailed a paper map(s) as you can find. Yes PAPER! They still exist. I always have a state atlas riding shotgun with me. Why paper when we have phones? At least two reasons: + +a) The only way to get a holistic sense of a landscape is to look at a region topographically… its curves and peaks and valleys, its swimming holes and water sources (all the way down to its fresh water springs). Paper maps also show dirt roads, which will be important later. + +b) You'll need paper because you probably won't have cell service in the places I'm talking about in this article. + +3) Apps can help too, but don't rely on them. I use [Topo Maps][1] often. It allows you to download any USGS quadrangle in North America, which helps with the details – the quadrangles show every dirt road and delineate between 2WD and 4WD. The app also works with No Service. + +My friends at [Where's My Office Now?][2] use the [AllStays app][3] often – it's a great resource for finding public land and developed campsites (free and paid). + +4) Now that you've got your map(s) and your mind(s) right, let the real fun begin. Look at all public land allocations within a two-hour radius. + +In summer, I've come to prefer National Forests because they are shady and have ample water sources. In winter, I prefer Bureau of Land Management lands (BLM) – typically open grasslands or high deserts – which tend to be abundant in sun and my favorite fire woods, pinyon and juniper. + +[_Note:_ For those of you in the east or midwest where there is very little public land, your hunt is a lot harder. This article is about my Western process. My Eastern process is simpler: I find private land I can camp without getting hassled, or I park in towns and cities (which I'll get into later). The same issue goes for Southern California and warm beach areas, which have become so overpopulated that finding free camping is nearly impossible, but it still can be done.] + +5) With your map of public lands, decide what mood you're in. Is it hot? Should you get high on a mountain, or to the coast or to a lake? Is it cold? Should you get to a hot spring or the desert? + +The more you pursue your intuition, the better you'll get at finding the best spots. This sounds very fuzzy because it is, but when your brain is drawn to something on a map, there's a reason. And the more you follow these reasons, the luckier you'll get. + +6) _Learn to_ _love the dirt!_ Dirt roads keep the tourists away and rarely lead to anything but treasures. When I started getting dirty every night, my luck increased exponentially. + +[_Note:_ While we're on the topic of dirty, it's unfortunate, but much of our public land has been trashed by [thoughtless folks][4]. Many times, I will come across a perfect camp with a nicely built fire ring, only to find dirty diapers stashed in the woods, shotgun shells littered throughout, and eight Keystone Ice cans in the fire. + +Don't get discouraged. If it's a good camp, stay. Use it as an opportunity to clean up the land and leave your own trace (none). Bag the trash and disperse the negative energy others have left behind; make it your own home with your own energy. I try to leave each campsite improved… cleaned up and (if energy permits) with firewood for the next free-seeker.] + +7) Let's say you've driven for an hour and are stumped. Here are landmarks that are sure winners: + +a) Bridges – before and after bridges there is usually a (well-hidden) dirt road that leads down to the water source and camping near it. + +b) Radio towers – all radio towers have roads to them. Some of these roads have gates, but many are left unlocked. If you can stand the thought of the incoming/outgoing waves, the views are unparalleled. + +c) Telephone lines – same story as radio towers, most have access roads to them that are never used. + +d) Around paid campsites – often the best place to look, especially in National Forests. People with the same free-camping philosophy have most likely carved out a camp nearby. + +e) Railroad tracks – paralleling all railroad tracks are dirt roads and pullouts. Just don't park too close to the tracks or the train engineers will whistle at you all night long. + +f) Trailheads – any place that allows overnight hiker parking is (free)game for camping! + +8) You're still stumped and out of energy? Don't be afraid to break the rules, just be thoughtful in your execution. Don't add unnecessary harm to the land or others. Be able to justify your camp to a reasonable person if asked. My #1 rule in breaking the rules: don't bother anyone and you won't get caught. + +**Urban Camping** + +I really try not to urban camp because you have to be sneaky about it, which takes away the feeling of freedom. But I have to say, I do get a kick out of it – there's something mischievous about sleeping in front of someone's house who has no idea you're there. + +[_Note: _Urban camping is way harder (or impossible) if you have a dog (one of the reasons I don't) or if you're traveling with 3 or more people or a small child.] + +When my three buddies from [Current Sea][5] were on the road, they had to pop the top every night for sleeping room. They often pulled into neighborhoods and asked permission from the neighbors to pop and park the night. Often they heard "Yes!" I thought this was rad but have never done it myself.] + +On Walmart – somehow Walmart has gotten the reputation as being a great place to urban camp. I totally disagree. The last place I would camp is under 82 fluorescent lights with a bunch of people driving around all night. There is another way. + +1) Get your cooking done and your van tidied up before seeking good urban camping. I've definitely cooked on the street in front of someone's house before (which actually helped me [meet three amazing friends][6]). But, finding a spot and going to bed is the surest way to stay low profile. Reading, watching movies, etc. is fine too, just avoid activities that require a lot of van shuffling. + +2) Find a good neighborhood. This is the question I ask myself: where's the nicest view in town where neighbors won't notice an unfamiliar vehicle? + +There are nice neighborhoods where people have "their parking spot" and would be peeved if you took it. You're looking for the rung of neighborhoods just below that kind… the ones where your van fits in as a visiting friend. + +This is a feel thing, I can't explain how I know the good neighborhoods, I just do. You'll know them too. I've gotten some epic views in neighborhoods where people pay multi-millions for their lot. Very few things feel better than that. + +3) Look for parks, double lots, empty lots, tall hedges, and houses for sale. + +a) City parks are always the first place my eyes go to on the map. Many times there are parking restrictions at parks (for people like us!), but a block away, there won't be. + +b) If you can't find a good park, start looking for empty lots. When you're aware of them, you'd be amazed at how many empty lots there are in any town or city. Park in front of one, make it your lot. + +c) Next best to empty lots are double lots. Park in the back part (yard part) of the lot, so the homeowners won't notice you when they're eating dinner. + +d) Tall hedges, ahhh, my best friend. Those people who want privacy so bad, they can't even see your van on the street. Perfection. + +e) Houses for sale that are uninhabited. Their tell-tale sign is the single porch light and single living room light that are on. They also have a strange vacant energy if you watch them long enough. + +4) Okay, you've found a good spot, but it has a horribly uneven lie. You have three options: + +a) High energy level – leave, find something better. + +b) Medium energy – pull your tires up on the curb to level out. Yes, it will look obvious, but if you're not bothering anyone with your post-parking activities, no one will bother you. + +c) Low energy – stay, do nothing, lie with the lie. The nights I have a horrible lie and don't care are the nights I will have zero problem sleeping anywhere. + +5) What about peeing? I've never been one for a pee-bottle (or bucket) because they smell, it's easy to miss (or overfill), and you have to deal with them later. + +If you've followed the steps above, you will have an urban camp with green space nearby… (queue mischievous feeling)… I just get out and pee when everyone's asleep (my bladder has a way of picking 3:23AM). + +6) What about extended urban stays? The longest urban stretch I've done was a week in multiple places. Find a good 3-4 spots and rotate them. I've got my rotation dialed in Anchorage, Jasper, Durango, etc. + +**Hassled?** + +I know you're wondering, have I ever been hassled? Never by weirdos, three times by authorities. + +Twice while rural camping (illegally). Both times I got moving too late. Both times I was pleasant. Both times – after the authorities saw I wasn't causing any harm to anyone or the land – they let me go without a citation. Just let the authorities feel like they've won, because guess what, that means you will too. + +I can't say you'll _never_ get caught camping illegally if you leave before 6:30AM, but I'm almost positive you won't get caught (I never have). Most government agencies don't pay well enough to get their people up before then. + +I've been hassled once while urban camping, but I asked for it. It was the night of a friend's wedding, and I had a buddy in the van with me, pop top up. I was being arrogant with the top up. + +We knew what to do if someone knocked… do nothing, stay quiet. Sure enough, at 2AM, we got knocked on and flash-lighted. Trouble for the authorities was, since they couldn't see us (curtains drawn) and we didn't make a peep, all they could do was leave. + +That's all I got for now. Happy free living… happy Wheel Estate Empire building! If you explore what I've outlined above, your concept about rent and land ownership will change forever. I'm just warning you now… + +[#63mph][7] [#stories][8] [#wheelestate][9] [#free][10] [#freedom][11] [#camping][12] [#home][13] [#vanlife][14] [#homeiswhereyouparkit][15] Please enable JavaScript to view the [comments powered by Disqus.][16] [blog comments powered by Disqus][17] + +1. ![][18][tellmeurthots][19] likes this +2. ![][20][braidb][21] likes this +3. ![][22][sarsarahb][23] likes this +4. ![][24][larrythemayor][25] likes this +5. ![][26][chiefgivesnofucks][27] likes this +6. ![][28][jack-sin][29] likes this +7. ![][28][jack-sin][29] reblogged this from [63mph][30] +8. ![][31][ruthmcm][32] likes this +9. ![][33][farawayfromgoodbye][34] reblogged this from [63mph][30] +10. ![][35][simonpascoleit][36] likes this +11. ![][37][hermosakid][38] likes this +12. ![][37][hermosakid][38] reblogged this from [63mph][30] +13. ![][39][zimsgym][40] likes this +14. ![][41][lifeisajourney40][42] likes this +15. ![][43][garrettwalden][44] likes this +16. ![][45][godothundeer][46] likes this +17. 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![][77][cercavoamore][78] likes this +37. ![][79][adaddy][80] likes this +38. ![][81][jeremynix][82] likes this +39. ![][83][steven-gauci][84] likes this +40. ![][85][pureacacia][86] reblogged this from [63mph][30] +41. ![][87][jasonaech][88] likes this +42. ![][89][lost-world-and-colourless-mind][90] likes this +43. ![][91][chadkirkland][92] likes this +44. ![][93][shanebeee][94] likes this +45. ![][95][63mph][30] posted this + +[1]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/topo-maps/id306014271?mt=8 +[2]: http://wheresmyofficenow.com/ +[3]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/camp-rv-tent-camping-to-rv/id370820516?mt=8 +[4]: http://63mph.com/post/51574835336/i-knew-a-man-briefs-from-prineville-or-55-days +[5]: http://ourcurrentsea.com/ +[6]: http://63mph.com/post/61049527891/vanlife-stories-from-girdwood-ak-162-days-in +[7]: http://63mph.com/tagged/63mph +[8]: http://63mph.com/tagged/stories +[9]: http://63mph.com/tagged/wheelestate +[10]: http://63mph.com/tagged/free +[11]: http://63mph.com/tagged/freedom +[12]: http://63mph.com/tagged/camping +[13]: http://63mph.com/tagged/home +[14]: http://63mph.com/tagged/vanlife +[15]: http://63mph.com/tagged/homeiswhereyouparkit +[16]: http://disqus.com/?ref_noscript +[17]: http://disqus.com +[18]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_895f21ad73e8_16.png +[19]: http://tellmeurthots.tumblr.com/ "tell me ur thots" +[20]: http://assets.tumblr.com/images/default_avatar/octahedron_closed_16.png +[21]: http://braidb.tumblr.com/ "Untitled" +[22]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_f01d3927f194_16.png +[23]: http://sarsarahb.tumblr.com/ "Sarah" +[24]: http://assets.tumblr.com/images/default_avatar/sphere_open_16.png +[25]: http://larrythemayor.tumblr.com/ "Untitled" +[26]: http://33.media.tumblr.com/avatar_ce0ebb3edcd8_16.png +[27]: http://chiefgivesnofucks.tumblr.com/ "This Chief Ain't Givin' No Fucks." +[28]: http://31.media.tumblr.com/avatar_f390126d9160_16.png +[29]: http://jack-sin.tumblr.com/ "Jaccos Blog" +[30]: http://63mph.com/ "63mph" +[31]: http://33.media.tumblr.com/avatar_9ce8d140b352_16.png +[32]: http://www.ruthmcm.com/ "Ruth McMillan" +[33]: http://33.media.tumblr.com/avatar_0a9184faec0f_16.png +[34]: http://farawayfromgoodbye.tumblr.com/ "LA LUNA" +[35]: http://31.media.tumblr.com/avatar_f67d334efe69_16.png +[36]: http://simonpascoleit.tumblr.com/ "frihet." +[37]: http://assets.tumblr.com/images/default_avatar/cube_closed_16.png +[38]: http://hermosakid.tumblr.com/ "Untitled" +[39]: http://33.media.tumblr.com/avatar_eec4d6127bff_16.png +[40]: http://zimsgym.tumblr.com/ "Untitled" +[41]: http://assets.tumblr.com/images/default_avatar/sphere_closed_16.png +[42]: http://lifeisajourney40.tumblr.com/ "Untitled" +[43]: http://33.media.tumblr.com/avatar_2d0396f03480_16.png +[44]: http://garrettwalden.tumblr.com/ "Forever Stoked" +[45]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_e5de0b2a9287_16.png +[46]: http://godothundeer.tumblr.com/ "1st THUGOLOGIST" +[47]: http://33.media.tumblr.com/avatar_6ee3042051bd_16.png +[48]: http://c0lidewiththe-sky.tumblr.com/ "Perfectly Crooked." +[49]: http://michaelabegg.com/ "Michael Abegg" +[50]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_55d04d7bbe33_16.png +[51]: http://fattony73.tumblr.com/ "Fat_tony73" +[52]: http://31.media.tumblr.com/avatar_c1e098c136a8_16.png +[53]: http://kansascitykid.tumblr.com/ "Vans and Other Stuff" +[54]: http://33.media.tumblr.com/avatar_38429574d6d2_16.png +[55]: http://healingangelwings.tumblr.com/ "" +[56]: http://misfitwashere.tumblr.com/ "Misfit was here!" +[57]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_8bb8c056c107_16.png +[58]: http://31.media.tumblr.com/avatar_379f93f0b56c_16.png +[59]: http://laniiidae.tumblr.com/ "blood+earth" +[60]: http://33.media.tumblr.com/avatar_d3aa226ff63e_16.png +[61]: http://assets.tumblr.com/images/default_avatar/pyramid_open_16.png +[62]: http://onklubmod.tumblr.com/ "Untitled" +[63]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_12e81f329868_16.png +[64]: http://ttiler.tumblr.com/ "" +[65]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_7c31e95d2e45_16.png +[66]: http://sistersemperviren.tumblr.com/ "Sister Semperviren" +[67]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_0ae2ecfb7467_16.png +[68]: http://blog.alyssaquinn.com/ "➴" +[69]: http://daveeuro.tumblr.com/ "Untitled" +[70]: http://33.media.tumblr.com/avatar_e90a41baa31b_16.png +[71]: http://seaa.tumblr.com/ "S E A A" +[72]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_46ce4da96df3_16.png +[73]: http://delicateenigma.tumblr.com/ "Whispers, Screams, And Nothings" +[74]: http://delicateenigma.tumblr.com/post/94577413363 "View post" +[75]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_d9469c266d9d_16.png +[76]: http://brodeycook.tumblr.com/ "Brodey Cook" +[77]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_5a5712e93cdb_16.png +[78]: http://cercavoamore.tumblr.com/ "Quel Posto Che Non C'è" +[79]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_c8495cdb92ae_16.png +[80]: http://adaddy.tumblr.com/ "WFHDad" +[81]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_edc9747b8cc1_16.png +[82]: http://jeremynix.tumblr.com/ " Jeremy Nix" +[83]: http://33.media.tumblr.com/avatar_d384e7addc50_16.png +[84]: http://steven-gauci.tumblr.com/ "" +[85]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_b514a7f61841_16.png +[86]: http://pureacacia.tumblr.com/ "pureacacia" +[87]: http://33.media.tumblr.com/avatar_6175934c7735_16.png +[88]: http://jasonaech.tumblr.com/ "Jason H." +[89]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_6f87d86e649f_16.png +[90]: http://lost-world-and-colourless-mind.tumblr.com/ "In The Arms Of The Ocean" +[91]: http://38.media.tumblr.com/avatar_47d933944ed9_16.png +[92]: http://chadkirkland.tumblr.com/ "CHAD KIRKLAND {BLOG}" +[93]: http://33.media.tumblr.com/avatar_73f1954d3abb_16.png +[94]: http://shanebeee.tumblr.com/ "Greasy Hands And An Old Soul" +[95]: http://33.media.tumblr.com/avatar_5152117c542f_16.png diff --git a/free yourself from travel guidebooks.txt b/free yourself from travel guidebooks.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..56c0e86 --- /dev/null +++ b/free yourself from travel guidebooks.txt @@ -0,0 +1,129 @@ +title: 9 Steps To Free Yourself From Travel Guidebooks +date: 20140811 10:18:39 +tags: #travel #luxagraf #lx-post +--- + +Lonely Planet is no way to travel. I've always hated such things and in this day and age the internet is a far better resource. But you don't want to be trying to look things up on arrival. You need to plan ahead and create your own guidebook. + +The solution is to create your own. Create plain text files that can sync between your devices, esp important since your mobile will likely be with you more. I use one file per place I plan to go and keep things in a country level folder that syncs. + +In that file I put down everything from trains schedules, directions, language bits (characters if I'm in a country with a script language), common phrases spelled phenetically, any reservation confirmation info. Things I want to see at the destination -- e.g. museums, birds in the area, hiking nearby and so on. + +That plus anything I clean from research, along with all the links and relevant source from my research are kept in the file. When I can I print the file and paste it into a travel notebook for offline reference in cafes or wherever I might be. + +Wade has a few other ideas in there that I like, like maps and photos, but they would have to be stored separately from my plain text and referenced somehow. + +These notes also often become the basis of luxagraf posts. + +-- + +[source](http://www.vagabondjourney.com/9-steps-to-free-yourself-from-travel-guidebooks/) + +It’s been three years since I carried a travel guidebook. For some years before that I would use them intermittently, but when I had one I found that I rarely use it, and when I didn’t I found that I rarely missed it. So I just stopped using travel guides all together and haven’t looked back. It is my impression that this is a normal trend that we are going to see more of: the Lonely Planet epoch has come to a close, we’re now in the post-guidebook, post mass-market era of World Travel. + +But what do you replace that Lonely Planet or Rough Guide with? + +Having information on the road ahead is necessary in travel and travelers have always shared notes and used published material to guide their paths. But how do you compile and assemble this information in an organized, thorough, and easy to access format on your own? + +I’ve been working on this problem for many years now, and the solution that I’ve come up with is incredibly simple: I collect information myself and carry it with me on my smart phone and other electronic devices. Basically, I use an old school method of procuring travel information and give it life with modern resources and technology. + +This is what I do: + +**1. I have a folder on my computer, my tablet, and on my smartphone called “travels.”** + +On all of my devices — laptop, tablet, smartphone — this folder is synced. This is where I keep all of my travel notes. For each destination or stretch of travel I will create a new folder for that trip within the travels folder. So for my recent trip to Guizhou province, I made a folder called “Guizhou 2013″ in my travels folder. I then collected all the information, maps, and photos that I needed for this trip in the this folder. + +**2. For each trip/ portion of a journey/ destination I start blank a .doc or .html file.** + +As soon as I start conceiving of the next leg of my travels I will make a new .doc, .txt, or .html file, divide it up into sections (explained below), and I will continually add information to it as I collect information from online research and talking with people. I usually make these .html files as they can easily be read by all devices. + +This single file is where I will collect all the information that I will need to travel a route, a region, or a destination. I don’t want my geographic focus here to be too small — as I don’t want to bog myself down with an excessive amount of files — just as I don’t want my focus to be too large — as I don’t want the file to be too long and difficult to find particular bits of information quickly. What I want is to be able to have a complete chapter of travel notes in one easy to access file. + +[**Look at a sample of my travel notes**][7] + + [7]: http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travel-notes-sample/ + +**3. I list the place names that I will travel to or pass through at the top of the document for easy reference.** + +It’s sometimes easy to forget the names of places, especially on journeys where you pass through multiple locales daily. Don’t only just list your destination, but all the places where you must transfer through or otherwise stop at en route. If necessary, make notes on where they are in proximity to each other, or list them in temporal order. + +The benefits of doing this step may not seem evident at first, but when you need it it truly helps. For example, sometimes you can’t get a bus/ train ticket directly to your destination, but if you know of other cities on the way you can often easily piece together your route. + +Another reason why you should list these place names at the top of this document arises if you’re traveling in a country that doesn’t use the Latin alphabet. Having these place names in the local script as well as phonic renditions that you can consult in a matter of seconds is truly clutch. _Yes, you definitely want to double check that the person behind the counter gave you a ticket to the right place when traveling in China._ + +**4. I organize my notes.** + +You can arrange your data anyway you wish. You can divide it up by destination, you can divide it by topic (like transportation/ accommodation, etc . . ), or do it any other way you want to. Assembling your own travel information gives you the freedom to organize it in a way that works best for you. That said, I generally organize my travel notes down the page as follows: + +Place names +Transportation +[Accommodation][8] +Activities +Resources + + [8]: http://www.vagabondjourney.com/accommodation/ + +I organize my information by how urgently I may need to produce it. I want the information that I may need to access most urgently nearest the top of the page to lessen the need to scroll and the time it takes to find what I’m looking for. For example: I am probably going to need to know the number for the train I’m trying to buy a ticket for faster than where a Subway restaurant is located. As most regular high pressure situations in travel comes along with public transportation, I want all of this information at the top of the document. + +**5. Collecting transportation information.** + +I find the transportation information for the places I intend to travel to basically by searching for it online or by going directly to stations and finding it in person. Train timetables are often readily available on the internet, and I will list the routes that go along my path, along with the timetables and the prices for various classes. I try to do the same with bus transportation as well. If there is public transportation that regularly goes between two destinations throughout the day, I will make a note of it and write down the time of the first train/ bus and the last one. + +**6. Collecting accommodation information.** + +Finding places to stay has become far easier with the maturity of the global internet. It is now simple stuff to do a quick internet search and come up with an array of hostels/ [hotels][9] in your price range that are fully mapped out and ready to record. + + [9]: http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travel-deals/ + +[Sometimes I book accommodation in advance][10], and have the address of the place I’m staying copied and pasted in my notes; sometimes I locate a suitable area in a destination city to stay, record its location, and then go looking for a place to stay when I get there. + + [10]: http://www.vagabondjourney.com/why-i-began-booking-hostels-and-hotels-online/ (Why I Began Booking Hostels And Hotels Online) + +As far as my notes go, having my beds booking before arrival means I write down my hotel’s address and directions, along with contact phone numbers, email addresses, etc . . . I organize this information in sequential order, matching my prospective travel schedule. + +Accommodation information was once one of the main reasons to use a guidebook. Not anymore. Now instead of getting the low down on a small list of places that some guidebook writer supposedly visited some years before, you can up to the minute information and reviews from other travelers who actually stayed there and find out if there are availabilities prior to arrival. + +I often use the following sites to collect accommodation information or to make bookings: + +[Hostelbookers.com](http://www.hostelbookers.com/) +[Wikivoyage.org](http://www.wikivoyage.org/) +[Hostelz.com](http://www.hostelz.com/) +General search engine queries + +I don't use or recommend Tripadvisor. + +**7. Collecting information on activities/ my objectives for visiting.** + +This part of my notes is highly variable, and how thorough it gets depends on the complexity of what I intend to do in a certain location. Generally, I will record all of the addresses, directions, and additional info I think I may need. I find this information online, from looking at maps, or by communicating with people via email/ phone/ AFK. + +This is where having my own notes is essential, as I often find that I travel to places or do things that are not covered in Guidebooks or typical travel publications. + +**8. I then collecting maps and photos.** + +Collecting my own travel notes means that I also must get copies of my own maps. This is a good thing, as I can get the exact maps I need and I’m not just left with a general map of some city’s tourist district. I usually use Google Maps for this, and I take screenshots of close up, mid-range, and regional overview maps for each place I intend to go. I then save them to the folder where I’m collecting information for the journey with descriptive file names. + +If where I’m going appears as if it may be a little challenging to get to or a little confusing to ask directions to, I will also try to collect photos of local landmarks. This really helps if I’m trying to get to a place that I’m not sure of the precise location or the exact name, as I can show the photos to locals and get directions. I’ve found that locals may not know the proper place names or don’t use the same place names that outsiders use for many places that I’ve visited. When going to places that are outside the bounds of tourism, having photos of where you want to go will sometimes help you get there. + +**9. How I use this information. ** + +So I’ve collected all of this information into a folder that I keep on my computer, my tablet, and my smart phone, now how do I use it? + +As I only have one file for notes for a particular destination, all I have to do is create a shortcut to it on my smartphone or tablet and I can then pull it up in a matter of seconds. + +If I’m walking over to a booth to buy a train ticket I can pull up my notes on my phone without breaking stride, and by the time I get there I have a full timetable of all the trains that are running to my destination, of which I can pick the ones I prefer and request a ticket. + +If I’m going to get on a city bus and I’m not sure if I remembered what route number I want is, all I have to do is take out my phone and push a single button, do a little scroll, and there it is. + +If I need to call my hostel to get better directions all I need to do is pull up my travel note file on my phone, scroll down to the accommodation section, and copy and paste the number into my dialer. + +By having all the travel information I need in one easy to access, streamlined file I access it with lightning speed in real time and get to where I want to go. + +One of the biggest problems with Travel Guidebooks — digital as well as print — is that they’re colossal works packed with tons of information that you need to weed through to get to anything in particular. Desperately pawing through a guidebook in the streets looking for some essential bit of information that’s buried inside or to check a map makes you look foolish — it’s also an inconvenience and is dangerous. Each time you pull out a guidebook in public your sending a big message to everybody around you that you have no idea where you are or what you are doing. It makes you vulnerable. It’s also a big waste of time. + +When I pull out my phone in the street to check a map or an address I’m just some dude checking his phone like everybody else. + +### Conclusion + +Ditching Guidebooks wasn’t really an intentional thing for me. There was no singular moment when I declared that I wasn’t going to be lead around by some book that outlines someone else’s trip. I just stopped using them and never missed them. By taking my own notes I can make my own path, by collecting information from news reports, encyclopedias, blogs, forums, Wikivoyage, books, and maps I can find and get to pretty much any place in the world. + +Travel guides only cover a very small percentage of the places in any country, there is an entire world out there beyond the LP — though using them gives the impression that what they present are your only options. They’re not. World travel has now changed, the backpacker haunts of old are monstrosities of commerce today. We now need to cut own paths and collect our own travel information more than ever — and this means leaving mass-market travel guides behind. diff --git a/gap toothed scotsman.txt b/gap toothed scotsman.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..d3e8d47 --- /dev/null +++ b/gap toothed scotsman.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +gap toothed scotsman + +Gap toothed scotsman with hound dog +jowles -- no one will come +away a complete delight This +tango is half a life spent +A sun a father a departure +Grease pencil smeared cups (eyes) +Always coming always going around +write to stay awake
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/good lines.txt b/good lines.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..e39b83f --- /dev/null +++ b/good lines.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14 @@ +Good Lines + +This is not a parable its +just a story with no point +a pencil that can't be sharpened + +Butterflies devoured our sheets on the line + +These Faberge mornings + +Every which and when must what and why and of its attendant how five pleasure to the pavements, the dividing line and its shadow. + +The flowers here are purchases of feathers +the coffee like no other, mint leaf
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/how I failed my daughter and a simple path to wealth.txt b/how I failed my daughter and a simple path to wealth.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..29339ea --- /dev/null +++ b/how I failed my daughter and a simple path to wealth.txt @@ -0,0 +1,129 @@ +How I failed my daughter and a simple path to wealth + +From <http://jlcollinsnh.com/2011/06/08/how-i-failed-my-daughter-and-a-simple-path-to-wealth/> + +# How I failed my daughter and a simple path to wealth + +Literally since the day she was born people have been complementing my daughter. Her looks, her brains, her charm (she takes after her mother) and her behavior. + +For that last one I sometimes get credit. Not that I deserve it. Mostly I’ve stood by and simply watched in awe and tried not to get in the way. + +A few years back I actually lost a friend over this. He was so insistent I take credit and so upset when I didn’t, he hasn’t spoken to me since. But the truth is the truth. + +In fact, I have this vision of the Birth Angel approaching God in ‘91 and saying, “Hey there, God, we’re planning to send a little baby girl down to that Collins guy.” + + + +And God saying, “Ah, man. Really? Did I authorize this? I did?? Guess this day hadda come. Well, send him the easiest, best one you’ve got. He can’t handle much.” + +And so, I got Jessica. + +You might be thinking I’m overstating this. Not so. In the one area I actively tried to influence her, I failed miserably. [Money.](http://jlcollinsnh.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/what-we-own-and-why-we-own-it/) + +See, I hold a few core beliefs. One is that this whole civilization thing has been a huge mistake and we’d all be better off as hunter/gatherers. (More on that in a future post.) + +Another is that, since we do live in this complex, technical world you had best learn about money. Money is the single most important, effective tool in navigating it. + +I started her early. Allowance. Envelopes for spending, saving and charity. “The Richest Man inBabylon.” Checking account. Saving account. Mutual fund. Endless conversations (ok lectures) on the subject. What child wouldn’t love this stuff? + +[](http://jlcollinsnh.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/girl-bored-studying1.jpg) + +Now she’s in college and, home from one recent break, I brought it up again. She stopped me. “Dad,” she said “I know this is important. I appreciate money. I know I need it. I just don’t want to have to think about it and manage it.” + +Yikes. The one thing I tried to instill…. + +But then I thought about it. This likely describes most people. Financial geeks like me are the aberration. Sane people don’t want to be bothered. So is there a simple way for folks who have better things to do with their time? + +Yep, there is. Below is what I created for her, and she’ll get better results with it than the vast majority active money managers. + + [](http://jlcollinsnh.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/simple-path.jpg) + +**The simple path to wealth** + +It starts with **nine basics**. She doesn’t have to read any further than these to make it work. Just do it. + + 1. Avoid fiscally irresponsible people. Never marry one or otherwise give him access to your money. + 2. [Avoid money managers.](http://jlcollinsnh.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/why-i-dont-like-investment-advisors/) It’s your money and no one will care for it better than you. + 3. Avoid debt. + 4. Save a portion of every dollar you get. + 5. The greater the percent of your income you save and invest, the sooner you’ll have [F-You money](http://jlcollinsnh.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/why-you-need-f-you-money/). Try 50%. With no debt, this perfectly doable. + 6. Put this money in the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSAX) This is the fund you already own, so just keep adding to it. + 7. Realize the market and the value of your shares will sometimes drop dramatically. People all around you will panic. They’ll be screaming Sell, Sell, Sell. Ignore this. Even better: Buy more shares. + 8. When you can live off the dividends VTSAX provides you are financially free. + 9. The less you need, the more free you are. + +[](http://jlcollinsnh.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/freedom.jpg) + +Willing to go a step further? + +**Notice what you are not doing:** + + * No expensive money managers + * No fancy strategies + * No exotic, hard to understand investments + * No weekly, monthly or even yearly management + * No effort; just keep adding to the pot. + +More? I thought you’d never ask! + +**The Details:** + +**1) Avoid fiscally irresponsible people.** Nothing will destroy your wealth faster than letting someone else have access to it. Fiscally irresponsible people have squandered their money and will happily squander yours. They will try every dirty trick possible to get their hands on it. Kick them to the curb. Look for people who will add to your efforts. **_This applies to more than just money._** + +**2) Avoid Money Managers.** They are expensive at best and will rob you at worst. Google Bernie Madoff. Seek advice cautiously and never give up control. It’s your money and no one will care for it better than you. But many will try hard to make it theirs. Don’t let it happen. + +**3) Avoid debt. ** Never borrow money. Never carry a credit card balance. Almost everyone else you meet will be borrowing money to buy this or that. It will look normal. You might be mocked. You don’t want to run with this crowd. People still refuse to believe I have never had a car payment. + + * The only exception **_might_** be for a house. But don’t be in any hurry. Think long and hard before taking out that mortgage. If you are a disciplined saver, [renting is damn near always the better fiscal choice](http://jlcollinsnh.com/2012/02/23/rent-v-owning-your-home-opportunity-cost-and-running-some-numbers/). (If you are not, a house can act as a forced savings plan. A poor one, but at least a plan.) + + * A house is not an investment. In fact it has the [very worst characteristics of an investment](http://jlcollinsnh.com/2013/05/29/why-your-house-is-a-terrible-investment/). It is only place to live and an expensive indulgence. Buy one only if you can easily afford it and want that particular lifestyle. + + * Most people will argue this strenuously. They are wrong. [This is why](http://jlcollinsnh.com/2013/05/29/why-your-house-is-a-terrible-investment/). This guy got it right too: [http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/03/why-i-am-never-going-to-own-a-home-again/](http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/03/why-i-am-never-going-to-own-a-home-again/) + +** 4) Save a portion of every dollar you get.** 50% is good. With no debt, this perfectly doable. Think this is too extreme? Check out the conversations here: [http://earlyretirementextreme.com/manifesto.html](http://earlyretirementextreme.com/manifesto.html) + +The most valuable thing you can buy with money is not cars or clothes or vacations or houses. It is your financial freedom. So pay yourself first. Most people spend every cent they make and borrow to spend even more. This is nuts. Those who do are slaves to their employers and slaves to their debt holders. You weren’t raised to be a slave. + +**5)** **The greater the percent of your income you save and invest, the sooner you’ll have [F-You money.](http://jlcollinsnh.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/why-you-need-f-you-money/) **The obvious reason this works is that the more you save the more you’ll have. The less obvious reason is the less you learn to live on the less you’ll need to be financially independent. See point #9 and [http://jlcollinsnh.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/the-monk-and-the-minister/](http://jlcollinsnh.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/the-monk-and-the-minister/) + +**6)** Put this money in the **Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSAX). ** [https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0585&FundIntExt=INT ](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0585&FundIntExt=INT) You want the money you save to work hard for you. In VTSAX it will. + +i. This is an “index fund.” You can learn more about exactly what that means anytime, but for our purposes here it means very low cost so you keep more of your money. + +ii. VTSAX is an index fund that invests in stocks. Stocks, over time, provide the best returns. + +iii. Vanguard is the company that operates the fund and it is the only investment company you need (or should) deal with. Vanguard’s unique structure means that its interests and yours are the same. This is unique among investment companies. Again, if and when you care to, it is easy to learn why and how this is so. + +iv. You might find a fund in another investment company that is a bit cheaper. But you can’t trust these other companies long-term. Their interests are not your interest. If you play with snakes, to quote Dave Ramsey, you’ll eventually get bitten. Don’t bother. Stick with Vanguard. + +v. You will hear occasionally how “actively managed” funds beat index funds. It will seem obviously better to switch to one of these. It’s not. Don’t. Very rare is the manager who can consistently outperform the index. While who they are it is obvious after the fact, it is impossible to know who it will be out of the hundreds at the start. Even if you were to get lucky, now you have to pay close attention. They retire, quit, die or simply lose their touch. Plus they are more expensive. Don’t bother + +vi. We choose to invest in stocks because, over time, stocks outperform everything else. They give you the best returns with, using an index fund like VTSAX, the lowest effort and cost. Never try to pick individual stocks unless you turn pro. Even then you likely will underperform the index. Most pros do. [http://jlcollinsnh.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/why-i-can%e2%80%99t-pick-winning-stocks-and-you-can%e2%80%99t-either/](http://jlcollinsnh.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/why-i-can%e2%80%99t-pick-winning-stocks-and-you-can%e2%80%99t-either/) + +vii. Owning 100% stocks like this is considered “very aggressive.” It is, but you have decades ahead. Market ups and downs don’t matter as long as you avoid panic and stay the course. Perhaps 40+ years from now you might want to add a Bond Index Fund to smooth out the ups and downs. Worry about that 40 years from now. + +**7) Realize the market and the value of your shares will sometimes drop dramatically**. No worries. You’ll be holding this fund for 40-50+ years. During that time the stock market will very likely drop dramatically 4 or 5 times. There will be real and serious problems that cause it. Each time people will panic. Each time they will predict this is the end. Each time you’ll be hearing Sell! Sell! Sell! + +If you are smart, you will ignore this. If you are very smart you will use these times as an opportunity to buy more shares at bargain prices. + +As I write this in June 2011 the S&P is trading around 1300. Two years ago it was at 670 and people were predicting with certainty it would go to zero. Opps. It doubled. + +By the way, there will also be times then the market soars and people will begin to say this is a new age. Things are different this time. Things will never go down again. They, too, are wrong. + +Warren Buffett, the greatest investor of my age, said “When others are fearful be greedy. When others are greedy, be fearful.” Sound advice. The wheel always turns. Things always recover. If someday the end really does come, it won’t matter anyway. + +**8) When you can live off the dividends VTSAX provides you are financially free. ** Actually a bit sooner. As this is written, VTSAX is paying a dividend of 1.68%. Sometimes this will be higher, sometimes lower. Anytime you can live off it you are financially independent. But when you can live off of 3-4% per year of your net worth you are also free. + +[](http://jlcollinsnh.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/free-woman.jpg) + +There you have it. Remember, this advice is for my 19-year-old daughter. [(We do things a bit, but not much, differently.)](http://jlcollinsnh.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/what-we-own-and-why-we-own-it/)Now, if I can just get her to read it….. + +You might also be interested in the case study: [putting-the-simple-path-to-wealth-into-action](http://jlcollinsnh.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/putting-the-simple-path-to-wealth-into-action/) + +**Addendum I**: [What if you can’t buy VTSAX? Or even Vanguard?](http://jlcollinsnh.com/2013/05/02/stocks-part-xvii-what-if-you-cant-buy-vtsax-or-even-vanguard/) + +**Addendum II:** When the time comes and you want to know more about this investing stuff, here you go: [Stock Series](http://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/). + +[](http://www.linkwithin.com/) + +[jlcollinsnh.com __](http://jlcollinsnh.com/2011/06/08/how-i-failed-my-daughter-and-a-simple-path-to-wealth/) diff --git a/how i deal with people asking me the same questions all the time when traveling.txt b/how i deal with people asking me the same questions all the time when traveling.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..25c8281 --- /dev/null +++ b/how i deal with people asking me the same questions all the time when traveling.txt @@ -0,0 +1,115 @@ +How I Deal With People Asking Me The Same Questions All The Time When Traveling + +tags: refx, travel +date: November 18, 2013 10:08:11 AM +--- + +From <http://www.vagabondjourney.com/how-i-deal-with-people-asking-me-the-same-questions-all-the-time-when-traveling/> + +# How I Deal With People Asking Me The Same Questions All The Time When Traveling + + +_Hey Wade,_ + +_I really enjoy reading your articles. I was wondering if you can write something about how you deal with all the random people constantly asking you the very, very same questions._ + +_I have to admit that I don’t really know how to deal with it, since on the one hand, those people are just interested in this stranger with whom they maybe even practice their basic English, but on the other hand most of the times it is just annoying, because after the basics there is not much more coming. Are you always happy about those conversations hoping that at the end you are hearing or learning something or how do you feel about that?_ + +_Also those random “Hello, Mister! How are you?”-shouts?_ + +_Cheers,_ +_Markus_ + + +Hello Markus, + +Yes, those repetitive questions are one of the more onerous aspects of world travel. Hostels and backpacker bars especially are flooded with people talking about the same things over and over and over again. Everybody eventually gets annoyed with this, but most keep doing it anyway — apparently for lack of anything better to ask. But interacting with locals is often no different, and if you don’t make something of the conversation and dig deeper they are more often than not going to lead in circles: + +“Where are you from?” + +“What do you do?” + +“What do you think of [country you're in]?” + +“Do you like [country you are in's] women?” + +“Do you like [name of politician]?” + +On and on. + +People everywhere are in a perpetual hunt for things to talk about with each other. As you state in your question, you are bored of the conversations you are having. There is nothing out of the ordinary about this: everybody is bored with the conversations they are having. Gossip, Facebook, reality shows, sitcoms, sports, the news are so popular all over the world for a reason: they give people stuff to talk about. + +Travel is a global exercise in meeting new people, and these baseline questions is just part of the territory. There is no way to avoid it other than not talking with people or not traveling. You don’t get these questions in the sedentary life because everybody knows the answers already. + +But while these same old, same old questions can be annoying, you generally need a groundwork of understanding with someone before you can really have a good conversation. So those irritating inquiries serve a function. After they are over, you can take things deeper. + +I always view it as my responsibility to make a conversation worthwhile. Then again, my work is based around asking people questions and collecting their responses. If I was just traveling around the world, having conversations for kicks, I probably wouldn’t engage a tenth of the people I end up talking to. In point, I found that it helps to have a reason to talk with people, a purpose for making temporary friends. If it’s your mission to find out as much information as possible about a country then most all conversations with locals can be engineered to have value. + +To these ends, I carry around an ever-evolving list of questions with me to ask the various people I meet. When my natural, off the cuff, conversations go a bit dry I consult my list (which I also try to have memorized) and dive into various topics that I am interested in learning more about. In this way, my conversations all too often become impromptu interviews. + +It is my opinion, and I could be wrong here, that the main impetus to travel is to learn about the world we live in, so having set objectives helps me to move forward with this endeavor. Though I’m sure it helps that I have an endgame for these inquires: I write articles that draw from the responses I receive. + +To get technical about my strategy, I always carry a small notebook with me that has a page that is specifically for lists of topics that I want to talk with people about in a particular place. Before entering into a social situation, or sometimes when I am in the process of conversing, I will open up the notebook and glance at this list. I will then try to naturally include these topics in my conversations. Often, people seem to enjoy me taking an interest in them, their country, and culture, and simply showing an initiative to learn more is enough to open doors and drive the interaction deeper. + +Humans are natural teachers. + +My current list of topics for China: + +Evictions The disenfranchised Where do you want to be in five years, in ten Do a survey to gaugue the state of this culture Religion Collision between tradition and modernity Mobile public chatting Courtship +Migrant workers +Anxiety about the future + +These lists are always changing and evolving. When I want to learn about something else I add it to the list, after I collect a good amount of information on one topic I will try to focus on others. + +There is also a general rule of humanity that makes these inquiries possible: + +People everywhere tend to like talking about themselves. + +As I stated earlier, sedentary people don’t ask each other basic types of personal questions because they think they already know the answers. So take advantage of being an outsider, ask people about their lives, and chances are you will be giving them an opportunity to talk about things they don’t usually get to talk about. I’ve had people tell me stories that they have never bothered mentioning to even their families, and it is not uncommon for someone’s kid to exclaim with surprise: “He/ she never even told me about that before?” + +In point, showing an interest and asking questions can become a stimulating venture all parties involved. + +What is even more exhilarating is that once it becomes known in a place that you have an interest in what is going on, more people will come out to engage you. Ideally, what I want is to give people something to talk about. I want them to talk with their families and friends about the foreigner who asked a bunch of fool questions and took a lot of photos. This opens doors for my work. + +Give people something to talk about and they will answer your fool questions. + +My conversational shtick is based on being the fool. I go out acting ignorant and try to get people to show and teach me. If I go out in the streets acting as a know everything already I will learn nothing. + +It is amazing to me how many travelers are bent on telling the world the way things are. These people learn nothing because they are always talking, not listening. And they are seldom heard. Everybody already knows how the world works. You are not going to convince anybody of anything, whether it’s politics, religion, or attempting to show that people from your country are different than they think. What I find interesting is discovering worldviews that are different from my own. So I try to act foolish and I go out looking for people to “learn me.” At the end of the day I often come out ahead. + +When you’re someplace new, surrounded by a culture you’re not familiar with, and people you’ve never met before it is almost impossible to have mundane conversation. Just stick to the basics: who? what? where? why? when? how? + +My biggest problem comes when interacting with other Americans of my peer group who see me as “one of them.” I can no longer enact my fool routine and must interact in more of a “normal” fashion. There are many questions that I can’t ask because it’s assumed that I already know the answers. These interactions are hit or miss for me. If the other person listens well and is also an inveterate question asker on a perpetual hunt for information and knowledge then we will more than likely hit it off well. If not, then the conversation will probably not go very far. 9 out of 10 times this situation ends up being the latter. + +But, generally speaking, I don’t travel to hang out with people from my own or similar countries. If I wanted to do this I would go to the USA or Canada. So I tend to not put an emphasis on frequenting traveler hang outs. I have nothing against them, I just don’t find them the best places to go to have good conversation. + +Ultimately, f you have nothing to say to someone then there is no fault in not talking to them anymore. It’s OK to sit silently. + +That said, it is easy to fall out of the conversational loop when traveling abroad long term. If you’re not watching the same sitcoms, the same sporting events, reading the same websites as the people around you then it is going to be hard to connect. So I find out about the popular TV shows or music in the country that I am in and try to follow them. As far as communicating from people from a similar background as myself, I try to keep up on the news and sports in the USA and Europe. At the very least, this provides some conversational fodder and common ground to connect with people through. + +### Developing good conversation skills + +It seems to be as if there are two types of conversation: + +1) Interrogative – asking questions about something you don’t know. +2) Discussion – talking about something you share in common with somebody. + +Mastering both types of conversation is an art. To be blunt, having a good conversation takes preparation effort. Once you are living a life where you are not having experiences in common with the people around you you’re going to need to look for other things to talk about. As I mentioned earlier, having a list of topics that you’re interested in learning more about is one way; educating yourself about what other people are interested in is another. + +[Conversation skills are cultivated from years of experience](http://www.vagabondjourney.com/have-better-conversations-travel-tip/), and [older travelers tend to have better conversations than young](http://www.vagabondjourney.com/old-travelers-have-better-conversations-than-young/). Many people are simply not willing to put in the legwork to have good conversations or they have not yet built these skills (or even realize that this is a skill set they should be building), and there is nothing you can do about that. + +The problem is if it is _you_ that needs to work on conversation skills. Conversations go two ways. If you’re bored talking to someone then rest assured that they are more than likely equally bored talking to you. As the great Bill Nye the Science Guy once said: + +“If you ever say that you are bored what you are essentially saying is that you are boring.” + +Make the most of the people around you. Just about everyone can teach you something if you ask the right questions. It’s good practice to try to take a mundane and otherwise boring conversation that twist it into something that’s interesting. + +I traveled with a friend once who got so sick of being asked the same conversations over and over again that he would just flip the switch and come back with the most random, probing questions he could think of. + +_“Do you believe in God?”_ + +It worked. + +In the end, it is my impression that conversations are more about connecting with people than anything else. They don’t always need to be good to be worthwhile. Simply engaging someone verbally is often enough to satisfy some deep social need. + +Most people in this world are talking gibberish to each other most of the time. One of the most amazing things about learning a foreign language is when you get to the point where you can understand the conversations that are happening around you and you realize that they are 90% bullshit. Good conversations are rare everywhere. It’s the connecting, not the content, that counts. diff --git a/how to downsize images and keep them sharp.txt b/how to downsize images and keep them sharp.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..b4f3c62 --- /dev/null +++ b/how to downsize images and keep them sharp.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@ +title: How to Downsize Images and Keep Them Sharp +date: 20140731 13:27:28 +tags: #gimp #photos #webdev + + +When you size down an image you may get moires or jagged edges due to spatial frequency folding. The solution is to pre-blur the picture before sizing down. The rule is simple, if you size down by X, pre-blur with a Gaussian blur with a radius of X. For example, if you take an image from from 2000px to 400 (1:5), you would use a 5px blur radius. + +Then resize your image with scale image (resize in PS) and apply smart sharpen to sharpen up the details. + +This works because that pre-blur step (provided you do it right, using just enough, but not too much) doesn't end up softening the result any more than a direct downscale. If done correctly it removes information that will be lost in the resize anyway. + +based on: http://gimpforums.com/thread-image-quality-and-resizing
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/how to encrypt a file or directory in linux.txt b/how to encrypt a file or directory in linux.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebb28c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/how to encrypt a file or directory in linux.txt @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +title: encryption - How to encrypt a file or directory in Linux? +date: 2015-10-03T14:06:45Z +source: http://superuser.com/questions/249497/how-to-encrypt-a-file-or-directory-in-linux +tags: security + +--- + +I think it would be gpg. The syntax for files and directories differs though. + +## Encryption + +For files(outputs filename.gpg): + + gpg -c filename + +For dirs: + + gpg-zip -c -o file.gpg dirname + +## Decryption + +For files(outputs filename.gpg): + + gpg filename.gpg + +For dirs: + + gpg-zip -d file.gpg + +Edit: Corrected as @Mk12 pointed out the mistake of compression/decompression for encryption/decryption.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/how to secure nginx with let's encrypt.txt b/how to secure nginx with let's encrypt.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c071fd3 --- /dev/null +++ b/how to secure nginx with let's encrypt.txt @@ -0,0 +1,282 @@ +--- +title: How To Secure Nginx with Let's Encrypt on Ubuntu 14.04 +date: 2016-03-20T02:19:27Z +source: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-secure-nginx-with-let-s-encrypt-on-ubuntu-14-04 +tags: linux, luxagraf + +--- + +### Introduction + +Let's Encrypt is a new Certificate Authority (CA) that provides an easy way to obtain and install free TLS/SSL certificates, thereby enabling encrypted HTTPS on web servers. It simplifies the process by providing a software client, `letsencrypt`, that attempts to automate most (if not all) of the required steps. Currently, as Let's Encrypt is still in open beta, the entire process of obtaining and installing a certificate is fully automated only on Apache web servers. However, Let's Encrypt can be used to easily obtain a free SSL certificate, which can be installed manually, regardless of your choice of web server software. + +In this tutorial, we will show you how to use Let's Encrypt to obtain a free SSL certificate and use it with Nginx on Ubuntu 14.04. We will also show you how to automatically renew your SSL certificate. If you're running a different web server, simply follow your web server's documentation to learn how to use the certificate with your setup. + +![Nginx with Let's Encrypt TLS/SSL Certificate and Auto-renewal][1] + +## Prerequisites + +Before following this tutorial, you'll need a few things. + +You should have an Ubuntu 14.04 server with a non-root user who has `sudo` privileges. You can learn how to set up such a user account by following steps 1-3 in our [initial server setup for Ubuntu 14.04 tutorial][2]. + +You must own or control the registered domain name that you wish to use the certificate with. If you do not already have a registered domain name, you may register one with one of the many domain name registrars out there (e.g. Namecheap, GoDaddy, etc.). + +If you haven't already, be sure to create an **A Record** that points your domain to the public IP address of your server. This is required because of how Let's Encrypt validates that you own the domain it is issuing a certificate for. For example, if you want to obtain a certificate for `example.com`, that domain must resolve to your server for the validation process to work. Our setup will use `example.com` and `www.example.com` as the domain names, so **both DNS records are required**. + +Once you have all of the prerequisites out of the way, let's move on to installing the Let's Encrypt client software. + +## Step 1 — Install Let's Encrypt Client + +The first step to using Let's Encrypt to obtain an SSL certificate is to install the `letsencrypt` software on your server. Currently, the best way to install Let's Encrypt is to simply clone it from the official GitHub repository. In the future, it will likely be available via a package manager. + +### Install Git and bc + +Let's install Git and bc now, so we can clone the Let's Encrypt repository. + +Update your server's package manager with this command: + +Then install the `git` and `bc` packages with apt-get: + + * sudo apt-get -y install git bc + +With `git` and `bc` installed, we can easily download `letsencrypt` by cloning the repository from GitHub. + +### Clone Let's Encrypt + +We can now clone the Let's Encrypt repository in `/opt` with this command: + + * sudo git clone https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt /opt/letsencrypt + +You should now have a copy of the `letsencrypt` repository in the `/opt/letsencrypt` directory. + +## Step 2 — Obtain a Certificate + +Let's Encrypt provides a variety of ways to obtain SSL certificates, through various plugins. Unlike the Apache plugin, which is covered in [a different tutorial][3], most of the plugins will only help you with obtaining a certificate which you must manually configure your web server to use. Plugins that only obtain certificates, and don't install them, are referred to as "authenticators" because they are used to authenticate whether a server should be issued a certificate. + +We'll show you how to use the **Webroot** plugin to obtain an SSL certificate. + +### How To Use the Webroot Plugin + +The Webroot plugin works by placing a special file in the `/.well-known` directory within your document root, which can be opened (through your web server) by the Let's Encrypt service for validation. Depending on your configuration, you may need to explicitly allow access to the `/.well-known` directory. + +If you haven't installed Nginx yet, do so with this command: + + * sudo apt-get install nginx + +To ensure that the directory is accessible to Let's Encrypt for validation, let's make a quick change to our Nginx configuration. By default, it's located at `/etc/nginx/sites-available/default`. We'll use `nano` to edit it: + + * sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default + +Inside the server block, add this location block: + +Add to SSL server block + + location ~ /.well-known { + allow all; + } + +You will also want look up what your document root is set to by searching for the `root` directive, as the path is required to use the Webroot plugin. If you're using the default configuration file, the root will be `/usr/share/nginx/html`. + +Save and exit. + +Reload Nginx with this command: + + * sudo service nginx reload + +Now that we know our `webroot-path`, we can use the Webroot plugin to request an SSL certificate with these commands. Here, we are also specifying our domain names with the `-d` option. If you want a single cert to work with multiple domain names (e.g. `example.com` and `www.example.com`), be sure to include all of them. Also, make sure that you replace the highlighted parts with the appropriate webroot path and domain name(s): + + * cd /opt/letsencrypt + + * ./letsencrypt-auto certonly -a webroot --webroot-path=/usr/share/nginx/html -d example.com -d www.example.com + +**Note:** The Let's Encrypt software requires superuser privileges, so you will be required to enter your password if you haven't used `sudo` recently. + +After `letsencrypt` initializes, you will be prompted for some information. The exact prompts may vary depending on if you've used Let's Encrypt before, but we'll step you through the first time. + +At the prompt, enter an email address that will be used for notices and lost key recovery: + +![Email prompt][4] + +Then you must agree to the Let's Encrypt Subscribe Agreement. Select Agree: + +![Let's Encrypt Subscriber's Agreement][5] + +If everything was successful, you should see an output message that looks something like this: + + Output: + + IMPORTANT NOTES: + - If you lose your account credentials, you can recover through + e-mails sent to sammy@digitalocean.com + - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at + /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem. Your + cert will expire on 2016-03-15. To obtain a new version of the + certificate in the future, simply run Let's Encrypt again. + - Your account credentials have been saved in your Let's Encrypt + configuration directory at /etc/letsencrypt. You should make a + secure backup of this folder now. This configuration directory will + also contain certificates and private keys obtained by Let's + Encrypt so making regular backups of this folder is ideal. + - If like Let's Encrypt, please consider supporting our work by: + + Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt: https://letsencrypt.org/donate + Donating to EFF: https://eff.org/donate-le + +You will want to note the path and expiration date of your certificate, which was highlighted in the example output. + +**Firewall Note:** If you receive an error like `Failed to connect to host for DVSNI challenge`, your server's firewall may need to be configured to allow TCP traffic on port `80` and `443`. + +**Note:** If your domain is routing through a DNS service like CloudFlare, you will need to temporarily disable it until you have obtained the certificate. + +### Certificate Files + +After obtaining the cert, you will have the following PEM-encoded files: + +* **cert.pem:** Your domain's certificate +* **chain.pem:** The Let's Encrypt chain certificate +* **fullchain.pem:** `cert.pem` and `chain.pem` combined +* **privkey.pem:** Your certificate's private key + +It's important that you are aware of the location of the certificate files that were just created, so you can use them in your web server configuration. The files themselves are placed in a subdirectory in `/etc/letsencrypt/archive`. However, Let's Encrypt creates symbolic links to the most recent certificate files in the `/etc/letsencrypt/live/your_domain_name` directory. Because the links will always point to the most recent certificate files, this is the path that you should use to refer to your certificate files. + +You can check that the files exist by running this command (substituting in your domain name): + + * sudo ls -l /etc/letsencrypt/live/your_domain_name + +The output should be the four previously mentioned certificate files. In a moment, you will configure your web server to use `fullchain.pem` as the certificate file, and `privkey.pem` as the certificate key file. + +### Generate Strong Diffie-Hellman Group + +To further increase security, you should also generate a strong Diffie-Hellman group. To generate a 2048-bit group, use this command: + + * sudo openssl dhparam -out /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem 2048 + +This may take a few minutes but when it's done you will have a strong DH group at `/etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem`. + +## Step 3 — Configure TLS/SSL on Web Server (Nginx) + +Now that you have an SSL certificate, you need to configure your Nginx web server to use it. + +Edit the Nginx configuration that contains your server block. Again, it's at `/etc/nginx/sites-available/default` by default: + + * sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default + +Find the `server` block. **Comment out** or **delete** the lines that configure this server block to listen on port 80. In the default configuration, these two lines should be deleted: + +Nginx configuration deletions + + listen 80 default_server; + listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on; + +We are going to configure this server block to listen on port 443 with SSL enabled instead. Within your `server {` block, add the following lines but replace all of the instances of `example.com` with your own domain: + +Nginx configuration additions — 1 of 3 + + listen 443 ssl; + + server_name example.com www.example.com; + + ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem; + ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem; + +This enables your server to use SSL, and tells it to use the Let's Encrypt SSL certificate that we obtained earlier. + +To allow only the most secure SSL protocols and ciphers, and use the strong Diffie-Hellman group we generated, add the following lines to the same server block: + +Nginx configuration additions — 2 of 3 + + ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2; + ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on; + ssl_dhparam /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem; + ssl_ciphers 'ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES128-GCM-SHA256:kEDH+AESGCM:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:AES:CAMELLIA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!RC4:!MD5:!PSK:!aECDH:!EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA:!EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:!KRB5-DES-CBC3-SHA'; + ssl_session_timeout 1d; + ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:50m; + ssl_stapling on; + ssl_stapling_verify on; + add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=15768000; + +Lastly, outside of the original server block (that is listening on HTTPS, port 443), add this server block to redirect HTTP (port 80) to HTTPS. Be sure to replace the highlighted part with your own domain name: + +Nginx configuration additions — 3 of 3 + + server { + listen 80; + server_name example.com www.example.com; + return 301 https://$host$request_uri; + } + +Save and exit. + +Now put the changes into effect by reloading Nginx: + + * sudo service nginx reload + +The Let's Encrypt TLS/SSL certificate is now in place. At this point, you should test that the TLS/SSL certificate works by visiting your domain via HTTPS in a web browser. + +You can use the Qualys SSL Labs Report to see how your server configuration scores: + + In a web browser: + + https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=example.com + +This SSL setup should report an **A+** rating. + +## Step 4 — Set Up Auto Renewal + +Let's Encrypt certificates are valid for 90 days, but it's recommended that you renew the certificates every 60 days to allow a margin of error. At the time of this writing, automatic renewal is still not available as a feature of the client itself, but you can manually renew your certificates by running the Let's Encrypt client with the `renew` option. + +To trigger the renewal process for all installed domains, run this command: + + * /opt/letsencrypt/letsencrypt-auto renew + +Because we recently installed the certificate, the command will only check for the expiration date and print a message informing that the certificate is not due to renewal yet. The output should look similar to this: + + Output: + + Checking for new version... + Requesting root privileges to run letsencrypt... + /root/.local/share/letsencrypt/bin/letsencrypt renew + Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/example.com.conf + + The following certs are not due for renewal yet: + /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem (skipped) + No renewals were attempted. + +Notice that if you created a bundled certificate with multiple domains, only the base domain name will be shown in the output, but the renewal should be valid for all domains included in this certificate. + +A practical way to ensure your certificates won't get outdated is to create a cron job that will periodically execute the automatic renewal command for you. Since the renewal first checks for the expiration date and only executes the renewal if the certificate is less than 30 days away from expiration, it is safe to create a cron job that runs every week or even every day, for instance. + +Let's edit the crontab to create a new job that will run the renewal command every week. To edit the crontab for the root user, run: + +Add the following lines: + + crontab entry + + 30 2 * * 1 /opt/letsencrypt/letsencrypt-auto renew >> /var/log/le-renew.log + 35 2 * * 1 /etc/init.d/nginx reload + +Save and exit. This will create a new cron job that will execute the `letsencrypt-auto renew` command every Monday at 2:30 am, and reload Nginx at 2:35am (so the renewed certificate will be used). The output produced by the command will be piped to a log file located at `/var/log/le-renewal.log`. + +For more information on how to create and schedule cron jobs, you can check our [How to Use Cron to Automate Tasks in a VPS][6] guide. + +## Step 5 — Updating the Let's Encrypt Client (optional) + +Whenever new updates are available for the client, you can update your local copy by running a `git pull` from inside the Let's Encrypt directory: + + * cd /opt/letsencrypt + + * sudo git pull + +This will download all recent changes to the repository, updating your client. + +## Conclusion + +That's it! Your web server is now using a free Let's Encrypt TLS/SSL certificate to securely serve HTTPS content. + +[1]: https://assets.digitalocean.com/articles/letsencrypt/nginx-letsencrypt.png +[2]: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/initial-server-setup-with-ubuntu-14-04 +[3]: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-secure-apache-with-let-s-encrypt-on-ubuntu-14-04 +[4]: https://assets.digitalocean.com/articles/letsencrypt/le-email.png +[5]: https://assets.digitalocean.com/articles/letsencrypt/le-agreement.png +[6]: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-cron-to-automate-tasks-on-a-vps diff --git a/if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.txt b/if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..58a1abc --- /dev/null +++ b/if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.txt @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +Wake Up Dead Man » Early Retirement- “If You Fail to Plan, then You Plan to Fail” + +From <http://www.wakeupdeadman.com/2012/06/06/early-retirement-if-you-fail-to-plan-then-you-plan-to-fail/> + +# Early Retirement: “If You Fail to Plan, then You Plan to Fail” + +> “”By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”- Benjamin Franklin + +##### Let’s Talk Cash + +Although I haven’t focused a whole lot on money to this point, I do see personal finance as one of this blog’s cornerstones. I think that money plays such an important role in our lives, that it is not enough to simply say, “you should save,” but rather, we need to adjust our entire life philosophy before we can really tackle some of the challenges people face when it comes to money. Hence why I’ve spent so much time harping on Stoicism and other seemingly unrelated topics. Now that much of the foundation has been laid, we can start building on that. + +##### Financial Independence + +My personal goal, and my hope for all of my friends, family, and readers is to reach financial independence as quickly as possible. The common responses I get when I share this goal with people range from complete ignorance of what I’m talking about to skepticism and downright hostility. Either people have not considered the fact that they do not have to work into their sixties (or beyond) or they do not think that it is possible for anyone to achieve the level of wealth necessary to avoid that, without hitting the lottery or experiencing some other unlikely windfall. + +To those people I generally say “well, I’ve seen it done,” and point them toward Jacob at [earlyretirementextreme.com](http://earlyretirementextreme.com/), or to Mr. MM over at [MrMoneyMustache.com](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/). That is generally the last I hear from them about the subject because many of them are not willing to admit that the hyper-consumerist way of life they have chosen is insane. Just recently though, I was having the conversation with a close friend and coworker, and he informed me that he thinks he “might just retire so I can spend more time flying my air plane and playing with my boat.”**_ That got my attention!_** + +##### [](http://www.wakeupdeadman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/file000358650221.jpg) + +##### Let’s **Meet _the Example_ +** + +I’ll call this friend Lenny, (I’d hate to have him pissed at me for giving out his identity along with his life story). Lenny is a lot older than I want to be when I attain financial independence, but he is still younger than the normal retirement age (and has likely been financially independent for quite some time but chose to continue working). He is also an outlier by most standards. Without getting into too many specifics I will just say that he holds an AARP card (meaning he is over 50) and still jumps out of air planes on a regular basis, can outrun and out-lift guys half his age, and still has a full head of hair. That doesn’t happen on accident. + +##### How Does He Do it? + +Discipline. That is the one word that much of his success rests on. Lenny spent a lifetime taking care of his body, following a strict exercise regimen and eating right. He also never quit. He is the epitome of what it means to _be unstoppable_. Lenny has experienced hardships and setbacks like everyone else, some that would devastate a person, but the difference is that he didn’t let it alter his course. He kept his focus on what would get him where he wanted to be, his control over his own actions. + +Lenny made sacrifices with his time money when he was younger to ensure he had an income for the rest of his life. He quite likely could have been absolutely retired in his early forties, but he has spent the rest of that time doing various jobs that he enjoyed and felt passionate about. That is what financial independence is all about. Contrary to what the nay-Sayers think, it is not about being lazy and “not contributing to society.” It is about removing the need to make money from the equation so that your decisions are driven by your purpose and values. How many of us work jobs we don’t care about or that even in some cases run counter to our values, simply to “pay the mortgage?” Imagine if you didn’t have to. Lenny doesn’t have to imagine, he lives it. + +##### The Anti-Lenny + +I’ve got another very close friend who’s story isn’t quite as sunny as Lenny’s. Let’s call this friend Tim. Tim was always an entrepreneur and was generally pretty successful in his pursuits. Some people would say, “Tim could step in shit and he’d find gold.” This used to be true, in fact, Tim has quite likely made considerably more money in his lifetime than Lenny has, yet he has very little to show for it. Instead of saving and investing during his high-income years, he spent every dollar he made, and then some. Tim got caught up in the “keeping up with the Jones’” trap and constantly compared himself to his friends rather than being happy with what he had, (which was considerably too much stuff). He spent, not only in an attempt to satisfy his insatiable desires, but also to achieve recognition for how successful he was. Basing decisions off of either of those factors is never a good idea. + +His health also started out as good or better than Lenny’s, but he squandered that too. When Lenny was getting up early in the morning to go for a run and hit the gym, Tim was sleeping off a hangover from a night of debauchery. Over the years, that lifestyle will take it’s toll, and the effects are not only felt by the body, they are also felt by your bank account and your loved ones. + +Within the same year, Tim went through a quadruple by-pass surgery, a divorce, and a negative year with his business. Two years, several maxed out credit lines, and a host of ruined friendships later, Tim woke up crashing on people’s couches and working a menial job for a paltry sum of money. Between his medical bills and loss of revenue, Tim was never able to get back on solid footing. It occurs to me though, that had he simply made a few different decisions early on, he could have retired many years earlier and his biggest concern now would be where to go fishing. Instead, he now tries to figure out how to stretch his $1,200 or so of monthly disability income to the next payday. + +##### I Want to Live Like Lenny! + +You may have noticed that I mentioned that Lenny owns a a freaking air plane! That kind of expenditure is not indicative of a miserly cheapskate who never spent a dime and lived off of Ramen noodles to save up enough to not work. Is it? A lot of people’s view of early retirement or financial independence is that it takes too much sacrifice, but I have to disagree. My household is on track to achieve financial independence decades before the average retirement age, and we really don’t do without. [Mr. Money Mustache was financially independent in his early thirties and he’s living large.](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/06/01/raising-a-family-on-under-2000-per-year/) The fact seems to be that if you make it a priority in your life, and you take the steps that are required to get there, the destination is almost inevitable. + +The primary difference between someone who ends up with what they want out of life, and someone who ends up without, is that one person puts together a plan and works the plan while the other person wings it and relies on luck. I don’t want to squander my time waiting around for the winds of fortune, I’d rather choose a direction and start paddling. + +This entry was posted by [Bell Ringer](http://www.wakeupdeadman.com/author/admin/) on June 6, 2012 at 10:41 am
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/indian authors.txt b/indian authors.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..ce07c96 --- /dev/null +++ b/indian authors.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +Indian Authors + +Aitav Ghosh +Kavery Nambosan +Radhika Jha
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/jared diamond on farming.txt b/jared diamond on farming.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..04dde81 --- /dev/null +++ b/jared diamond on farming.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +Jared Diamond on Farming + +"With the arrival of farming, Diamond argues, women were subjected to domestic drudgery; people started to hoard resources and wealth; and our proximity to animals triggered disease epidemics that still threaten to overwhelm us. “With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence,” he states. + +http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jan/06/jared-diamond-tribal-life-anthropology
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/jrnl.txt b/jrnl.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..986e5b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/jrnl.txt @@ -0,0 +1,60 @@ +Mon 2014-03-31 09:00 added jrnl window to email todo pane + +Mon 2014-03-31 11:30 finished up sass for responsive design script, added tutorial and demo files on using compass toolkit to create intrinsic width scalable embeds. Turns out to be pretty handy, something I'll be using in the longhandpixels redesign. @rwd @screencast + +Mon 2014-03-31 14:31 recorded audio for responsive sass screencast. Turned out long and pretty good. just need to edit now. @rwd @screencast + +Mon 2014-03-31 16:31 edited audio for responsive screencasts, which at something like 18 minutes is the longest screencast of the bunch. +getting close to having these done. just need some video. @rwd @screencast + +Mon 2014-03-31 21:00 recorded first five minutes of video for sass screencast. Thinking I could do more here. @rwd @screencast + +Tue 2014-04-01 13:50 Finished video for sass screencast. @rwd @screencast + +Wed 2014-04-02 15:12 finished up responsive design and analytics video. Probably the worst of the bunch in terms of production value, but also perhaps the most useful. @rwd @screencast + +Wed 2014-04-02 15:13 Started work on the script for the 4th chrome dev tools screencast. @rwd @screencast + +Wed 2014-04-02 20:59 edited first 8 minutes of audio for chrome dev tools 04. @rwd @screencast + +Thu 2014-04-03 11:00 finished up script and audio recording for chrome dev tools 04. +Think I'm going to have to re-do the biggining though because I got the audit vs pagespeed insight thing wrong + +Thu 2014-04-03 14:00 finished up script and audio recording for browsersync screencast + +Thu 2014-04-03 16:00 finished video for browsersync, which ended up short because it turns out that the django dev server doesn't work with browsersync --proxy + +Thu 2014-04-03 22:32 finished audio for chrome dev tools 04. +Thinking that I might just leave the plain text workflow stuff at two videos and call all the audio done. That would mean just three video to shoot and this phase is done. + +Fri 2014-04-04 11:02 nearly finished up chrome dev tools part 4, just need to re-record a couple things to correct some misstatements + +Fri 2014-04-04 15:51 set up example files to showcase how much easier it is to work with markdown than raw html for first workflow video. +Took a lot longer than I thought it was going to. + +Mon 2014-04-07 10:25 RWD Book: added chrome dev tools resources to resources section + +Mon 2014-04-07 10:26 finished up styles for chrome dev tools shortcuts cheatsheet + +Mon 2014-04-07 10:36 RWD Book: added analytics resources to resources chapter + +Mon 2014-04-07 11:58 finished styling responsive screen guide cheatsheet + +Mon 2014-04-07 21:44 finished up first responsive workflow screencast + +Tue 2014-04-08 10:01 rewrote script for workflow part 2 + +Tue 2014-04-08 12:35 paid water bill and added gas bill to calendar + +Tue 2014-04-08 12:36 re-recorded much of pandoc workflow screencast 2 + +Tue 2014-04-08 16:53 rewrote script to second workflow screencast + +Tue 2014-04-08 21:07 re-recorded the rest of the second pandoc screencast + +Wed 2014-04-09 11:07 Spent all morning adding video to second palintext workflow screencash + +Wed 2014-04-09 22:00 finished last screencast + +Sat 2014-08-02 20:46 sng +pulled some cool new stuff from Steve Losh's vimrc diff --git a/kids-hard.txt b/kids-hard.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8d0acac --- /dev/null +++ b/kids-hard.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +Sometimes when they're so shitty I get frustrated cause all I wanted to do was something simple like drink a bear and write or eat some popcorns and space out on a movie, but then I lie there after they've fallena aspeel and I watch their little sleeping faces and I think how wonderful they are and how yeah I might not get to do some of the things I wanted to today, tomorrow, the next days, but fuck let's face it, I'm never going to do anything as important as making them into good people, as making sure they grow up with the things they need, watching them become their own people. Everything else I ever do will be nothing next to that, so fuck it. I didn't write today, I didn't want a movie. big fucking deal. diff --git a/letter to menoeceus by epicurus.txt b/letter to menoeceus by epicurus.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..e91484a --- /dev/null +++ b/letter to menoeceus by epicurus.txt @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +The Internet Classics Archive | Letter to Menoeceus by Epicurus + +tags: refx, philosophy +date: December 15, 2013 12:15:08 PM +--- + +From <http://classics.mit.edu/Epicurus/menoec.html> + +The Internet Classics Archive | Letter to Menoeceus by Epicurus + +# Letter to Menoeceus by Epicurus + +By Epicurus + +Translated by Robert Drew Hicks + +Greeting. + +Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come. So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it. + +Those things which without ceasing I have declared to you, those do, and exercise yourself in those, holding them to be the elements of right life. First believe that God is a living being immortal and happy, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of humankind; and so of him anything that is at agrees not with about him whatever may uphold both his happyness and his immortality. For truly there are gods, and knowledge of them is evident; but they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing that people do not steadfastly maintain the notions they form respecting them. Not the person who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them is truly impious. For the utterances of the multitude about the gods are not true preconceptions but false assumptions; hence it is that the greatest evils happen to the wicked and the greatest blessings happen to the good from the hand of the gods, seeing that they are always favorable to their own good qualities and take pleasure in people like to themselves, but reject as alien whatever is not of their kind. + +Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the person who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer. But in the world, at one time people shun death as the greatest of all evils, and at another time choose it as a respite from the evils in life. The wise person does not deprecate life nor does he fear the cessation of life. The thought of life is no offense to him, nor is the cessation of life regarded as an evil. And even as people choose of food not merely and simply the larger portion, but the more pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time which is most pleasant and not merely that which is longest. And he who admonishes the young to live well and the old to make a good end speaks foolishly, not merely because of the desirability of life, but because the same exercise at once teaches to live well and to die well. Much worse is he who says that it were good not to be born, but when once one is born to pass with all speed through the gates of Hades. For if he truly believes this, why does he not depart from life? It were easy for him to do so, if once he were firmly convinced. If he speaks only in mockery, his words are foolishness, for those who hear believe him not. + +We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither must we count upon it as quite certain to come nor despair of it as quite certain not to come. + +We must also reflect that of desires some are natural, others are groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some natural only. And of the necessary desires some are necessary if we are to be happy, some if the body is to be rid of uneasiness, some if we are even to live. He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a happy life. For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and, when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid; seeing that the living creature has no need to go in search of something that is lacking, nor to look anything else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled. When we are pained pleasure, then, and then only, do we feel the need of pleasure. For this reason we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a happy life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting-point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing. And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatever, but often pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them. And often we consider pains superior to pleasures when submission to the pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a greater pleasure. While therefore all pleasure because it is naturally akin to us is good, not all pleasure is worthy of choice, just as all pain is an evil and yet not all pain is to be shunned. It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, teat all these matters must be judged. Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary, as a good. Again, we regard. independence of outward things as a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that whatever is natural is easily procured and only the vain and worthless hard to win. Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when one the pain of want has been removed, while bread an water confer the highest possible pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To habituate one's se therefore, to simple and inexpensive diet supplies al that is needful for health, and enables a person to meet the necessary requirements of life without shrinking and it places us in a better condition when we approach at intervals a costly fare and renders us fearless of fortune. + +When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of merrymaking, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest disturbances take possession of the soul. Of all this the d is prudence. For this reason prudence is a more precious thing even than the other virtues, for ad a life of pleasure which is not also a life of prudence, honor, and justice; nor lead a life of prudence, honor, and justice, which is not also a life of pleasure. For the virtues have grown into one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them. + +Who, then, is superior in your judgment to such a person? He holds a holy belief concerning the gods, and is altogether free from the fear of death. He has diligently considered the end fixed by nature, and understands how easily the limit of good things can be reached and attained, and how either the duration or the intensity of evils is but slight. Destiny which some introduce as sovereign over all things, he laughs to scorn, affirming rather that some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency. For he sees that necessity destroys responsibility and that chance or fortune is inconstant; whereas our own actions are free, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach. It were better, indeed, to accept the legends of the gods than to bow beneath destiny which the natural philosophers have imposed. The one holds out some faint hope that we may escape if we honor the gods, while the necessity of the naturalists is deaf to all entreaties. Nor does he hold chance to be a god, as the world in general does, for in the acts of a god there is no disorder; nor to be a cause, though an uncertain one, for he believes that no good or evil is dispensed by chance to people so as to make life happy, though it supplies the starting-point of great good and great evil. He believes that the misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool. It is better, in short, that what is well judged in action should not owe its successful issue to the aid of chance. + +Exercise yourself in these and kindred precepts day and night, both by yourself and with him who is like to you; then never, either in waking or in dream, will you be disturbed, but will live as a god among people. For people lose all appearance of mortality by living in the midst of immortal blessings. + + +[classics.mit.edu __](http://classics.mit.edu/Epicurus/menoec.html) diff --git a/lhp book publishing tools.txt b/lhp book publishing tools.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..c138f2c --- /dev/null +++ b/lhp book publishing tools.txt @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +lhp-book-publishing-tools + +* Cover mocks: http://mockuphone.com/ +* payment processor: <https://gumroad.com/> +* fonts used: + * Chapter headings: Bodoni + * Body: TisaPro, Bold, Italic + * Headings (h2 $h3) Tradegothic LT CondEighteen + * Code: Inconsolata + +--------------------------- + +* Pandoc settings for html: + + pandoc --toc --toc-depth=2 --smart --template=lib/template.html5 --include-before-body=lib/header.html -t html5 -o rwd.html Draft.txt + +* Prince settings for HTML -> PDF: + + prince rwd.html -o rwd.pdf --javascript + +* Pandoc settings for epub: + + pandoc -S -s --smart -t epub3 --include-before-body=lib/header.html --template=lib/template_epub.html --epub-metadata=lib/epub-metadata.xml --epub-stylesheet=lib/print-epub.css --epub-cover-image=lib/covers/cover-portrait.png --epub-embed-font=lib/TisaPro-Regular.otf --epub-embed-font=lib/TisaPro-Bold.otf --epub-embed-font=lib/TisaPro-Ita.otf --epub-embed-font=lib/TisaPro-BoldIta.otf --epub-embed-font=lib/bodoni-mt-condensed.otf --epub-embed-font=lib/InconsolataforPowerline.otf --epub-embed-font=lib/TradeGothicLTCondensed.otf --toc --toc-depth=2 -o rwd.epub Draft.txt + +* Pandoc settings for Kindle epub: + + pandoc -S -s --smart -t epub3 --include-before-body=lib/header.html --template=lib/template_epub.html --epub-metadata=lib/epub-metadata.xml --epub-stylesheet=lib/print-kindle.css --epub-cover-image=lib/covers/cover-portrait.png --toc --toc-depth=2 -o kindle.epub Draft.txt + + Then that gets run through the Kindlegen tool + +* Pandoc settings for Sample Chapter: + +pandoc --smart --template=lib/template.html5 --include-before-body=lib/header_simple.html -t html5 --email-obfuscation=none -o samplechapter.html SampleChapter.txt && prince samplechapter.html -o RWDSampleChapter.pdf --javascript + +----------- + +helpful links: + +http://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublishingGuidelines.pdf +http://puppetlabs.com/blog/automated-ebook-generation-convert-markdown-epub-mobi-pandoc-kindlegen
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lhp idea book on writing with vim.txt b/lhp idea book on writing with vim.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..3bbff6e --- /dev/null +++ b/lhp idea book on writing with vim.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +lhp-idea - book on writing with vim + +https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.editors/BMP85bjXmVM +http://naperwrimo.org/wiki/index.php?title=Vim_for_Writers +http://therandymon.com/woodnotes/vim-for-writers/node12.html +http://usevim.com/page3/ +http://usevim.com/2013/10/23/vim-nanowrimo/
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lightweight backpacking list.txt b/lightweight backpacking list.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..8d39134 --- /dev/null +++ b/lightweight backpacking list.txt @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ +Lightweight Backpacking List + +Gear + +1. Sleeping Bag +2. Pad +3. Tent +4. Water Bottles (2 per person) +5. Compass +6. Mirror +8. Iodine Tablets +10. Rope +11. Shovel +12. Waterproof Matches +13. Lighter +15. Swiss Army Knife +18. Topographical Maps +20. headlamp +21. First Aid Kit + Moleskin +23. Plastic Baggies +24. Trash Bag +25. Camera +26. Sewing Kit +27. Insect Repellant +29. Binoculars +1. Toothbrush +2. Toothpaste +4. Toilet Paper +5. Sunscreen +6. Chapstick + + +Clothing + +1. Pair of Shorts +2. T-shirts +6. Raingear +8. Hat +9. Underwear (2) +11. Hiking Socks (2 pair) +12. Liner Socks (2 pair) +14. Boots +15. Shoes (after hiking) + +Cooking Gear + +1. Stove +2. alcohol fuel +5. Utensils +6. Pots (2) +8. Cups +8. Pan Scruber + diff --git a/los angeles 2001.txt b/los angeles 2001.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..fb36c54 --- /dev/null +++ b/los angeles 2001.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +Los Angeles 2001 + +May 6, downtown 1st and Vignes. Concrete and brick warehouses bleached in white sunlight, distant hazy buildings, plastic Rite Aid bag hissing softly across the concrete in the gentle morning breeze. Water stained bridge pilings, steaked soot and graffiti, wethered telephone poles look like cactus skeletons beached near white in centuries of desert dun. Cracked sidwalk grows one grapefruit tree, stunted and yelloly but somehow slinging to life in the hostile concrete environment. + +Thin TV wires bisect the sky, loping from tellaphone pole to pole running like s string of crucifixes along the highway, carrying reruns, news breifs, news of death, electiricty crackled and whirls in the rusted gray boxes near the tops of the poles. distant roar of deisel trucks crossing the bridge. Leprachan troll image lurking under the bridge with dynamite and gold while the busy ness of man carries on without notice. The underground, the middle world, the ded languages of mystic poetws that can only be moved from gibberish by the wonders and now lost but now found castagraf transmitter.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/love.txt b/love.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..94634b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/love.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +Love + +There is no such thing as a person whose real self you like every particle of. This is why a world of liking is ultimately a lie. But there is such a thing as a person whose real self you love every particle of. And this is why love is such an existential threat to the techno-consumerist order: it exposes the lie. -- Johathan Franzen, Liking Is for Cowards, New York Times, June 29, 2011
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lx link to header image.txt b/lx link to header image.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..b05dd3c --- /dev/null +++ b/lx link to header image.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +lx-arc - link to header image + +http://www.stock-photos-illustrations.com/enlarged/6106-05631332/Man-carrying-backpack-looking-at-map-side-view/7
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lx post compound interest.txt b/lx post compound interest.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..6517157 --- /dev/null +++ b/lx post compound interest.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +lx-post - compound interest + +http://www.raptitude.com/2013/01/the-most-powerful-force-in-the-universe-and-how-to-use-it/
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lx post ere.txt b/lx post ere.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..56ad937 --- /dev/null +++ b/lx post ere.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +I've been hanging around various places internet communities for years, others I've come to more recently. For years I've followed the ERE community, recently I started following the indie web camp community. I'm also in the middle of a deep dive into something i neglected in five years of professional cooking -- fermentation. + +All of these things are related. + +# another post is going to be about https and privacy and how privacy is a conceit of the rich, but one that we should aspire to grant to everyone. the more money you have the more privacy you can get but the more disconnected from your neighbors you become. privacy is not without tradeoff, of course those of us in the industrialized world were born without a chance to even know that tradeoffs had been made. we already had houses that afforded us privacy, or some measure of it, yards screen off, cars humming the highway alone. Maybe you grew up in new york, no car, no yard. That's precisely what I mean, you expectations of privacy are different. you might have more community, joining your building neighbors on the roof to enjoy the sun, or grill up something tasty for instance. + +What's different about this notion of privacy and the notional idea of privacy on the internet is that in the first case you are getting some privacy from your fellow humans, in the case the net you are getting some privacy from government perhaps, but more obviously and more worryingly, privacy from corporations. That is a very different sort of privacy in my view than our traditional notion of privacy. I might not care if my nest door neighbor knows what I had for dinner because we both happened to be out in our years grilling at the same time, but it does not follow that I want Google, Kroger, Proctor & Gamble or any other corporation to have that same info. diff --git a/lx post estuary time.txt b/lx post estuary time.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..299d933 --- /dev/null +++ b/lx post estuary time.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +In nature, an estuary is the wide mouth of a river into which the tides flow, an area where the fresh water of the river and the salt water of the sea mix together. “In an estuary,” Lopez observes, “nature creates a set of organisms which are not from one side or the other, but completely different. In the same way, people who live on the Tijuana border have this kind of estuarian time. It’s not a Mexican time. It’s not an American time. It’s a different time. + +from geography of time, robert levine p206 note: [[rn The Geography of Time]]
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lx post how to free yourself from guidebooks.txt b/lx post how to free yourself from guidebooks.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..0d1c79f --- /dev/null +++ b/lx post how to free yourself from guidebooks.txt @@ -0,0 +1,129 @@ +title: 9 Steps To Free Yourself From Travel Guidebooks +date: 20140811 10:18:39 +tags: #travel #luxagraf #lx-post +--- + +Lonely Planet is no way to travel. I've always hated such things and in this day and age the internet is a far better resource. But you don't want to be trying to look things up on arrival. You need to plan ahead and create your own guidebook. + +The solution is to create your own. Create plain text files that can sync between your devices, esp important since your mobile will likely be with you more. I use one file per place I plan to go and keep things in a country level folder that syncs. + +In that file I put down everything from trains schedules, directions, language bits (characters if I'm in a country with a script language), common phrases spelled phenetically, any reservation confirmation info. Things I want to see at the destination -- e.g. museums, birds in the area, hiking nearby and so on. + +That plus anything I clean from research, along with all the links and relevant source from my research are kept in the file. When I can I print the file and paste it into a travel notebook for offline reference in cafes or wherever I might be. + +Wade has a few other ideas in there that I like, like maps and photos, but they would have to be stored separately from my plain text and referenced somehow. + +These notes also often become the basis of luxagraf posts. + +-- + +[source](http://www.vagabondjourney.com/9-steps-to-free-yourself-from-travel-guidebooks/) + +It’s been three years since I carried a travel guidebook. For some years before that I would use them intermittently, but when I had one I found that I rarely use it, and when I didn’t I found that I rarely missed it. So I just stopped using travel guides all together and haven’t looked back. It is my impression that this is a normal trend that we are going to see more of: the Lonely Planet epoch has come to a close, we’re now in the post-guidebook, post mass-market era of World Travel. + +But what do you replace that Lonely Planet or Rough Guide with? + +Having information on the road ahead is necessary in travel and travelers have always shared notes and used published material to guide their paths. But how do you compile and assemble this information in an organized, thorough, and easy to access format on your own? + +I’ve been working on this problem for many years now, and the solution that I’ve come up with is incredibly simple: I collect information myself and carry it with me on my smart phone and other electronic devices. Basically, I use an old school method of procuring travel information and give it life with modern resources and technology. + +This is what I do: + +**1. I have a folder on my computer, my tablet, and on my smartphone called “travels.”** + +On all of my devices — laptop, tablet, smartphone — this folder is synced. This is where I keep all of my travel notes. For each destination or stretch of travel I will create a new folder for that trip within the travels folder. So for my recent trip to Guizhou province, I made a folder called “Guizhou 2013″ in my travels folder. I then collected all the information, maps, and photos that I needed for this trip in the this folder. + +**2. For each trip/ portion of a journey/ destination I start blank a .doc or .html file.** + +As soon as I start conceiving of the next leg of my travels I will make a new .doc, .txt, or .html file, divide it up into sections (explained below), and I will continually add information to it as I collect information from online research and talking with people. I usually make these .html files as they can easily be read by all devices. + +This single file is where I will collect all the information that I will need to travel a route, a region, or a destination. I don’t want my geographic focus here to be too small — as I don’t want to bog myself down with an excessive amount of files — just as I don’t want my focus to be too large — as I don’t want the file to be too long and difficult to find particular bits of information quickly. What I want is to be able to have a complete chapter of travel notes in one easy to access file. + +[**Look at a sample of my travel notes**][7] + + [7]: http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travel-notes-sample/ + +**3. I list the place names that I will travel to or pass through at the top of the document for easy reference.** + +It’s sometimes easy to forget the names of places, especially on journeys where you pass through multiple locales daily. Don’t only just list your destination, but all the places where you must transfer through or otherwise stop at en route. If necessary, make notes on where they are in proximity to each other, or list them in temporal order. + +The benefits of doing this step may not seem evident at first, but when you need it it truly helps. For example, sometimes you can’t get a bus/ train ticket directly to your destination, but if you know of other cities on the way you can often easily piece together your route. + +Another reason why you should list these place names at the top of this document arises if you’re traveling in a country that doesn’t use the Latin alphabet. Having these place names in the local script as well as phonic renditions that you can consult in a matter of seconds is truly clutch. _Yes, you definitely want to double check that the person behind the counter gave you a ticket to the right place when traveling in China._ + +**4. I organize my notes.** + +You can arrange your data anyway you wish. You can divide it up by destination, you can divide it by topic (like transportation/ accommodation, etc . . ), or do it any other way you want to. Assembling your own travel information gives you the freedom to organize it in a way that works best for you. That said, I generally organize my travel notes down the page as follows: + +Place names +Transportation +[Accommodation][8] +Activities +Resources + + [8]: http://www.vagabondjourney.com/accommodation/ + +I organize my information by how urgently I may need to produce it. I want the information that I may need to access most urgently nearest the top of the page to lessen the need to scroll and the time it takes to find what I’m looking for. For example: I am probably going to need to know the number for the train I’m trying to buy a ticket for faster than where a Subway restaurant is located. As most regular high pressure situations in travel comes along with public transportation, I want all of this information at the top of the document. + +**5. Collecting transportation information.** + +I find the transportation information for the places I intend to travel to basically by searching for it online or by going directly to stations and finding it in person. Train timetables are often readily available on the internet, and I will list the routes that go along my path, along with the timetables and the prices for various classes. I try to do the same with bus transportation as well. If there is public transportation that regularly goes between two destinations throughout the day, I will make a note of it and write down the time of the first train/ bus and the last one. + +**6. Collecting accommodation information.** + +Finding places to stay has become far easier with the maturity of the global internet. It is now simple stuff to do a quick internet search and come up with an array of hostels/ [hotels][9] in your price range that are fully mapped out and ready to record. + + [9]: http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travel-deals/ + +[Sometimes I book accommodation in advance][10], and have the address of the place I’m staying copied and pasted in my notes; sometimes I locate a suitable area in a destination city to stay, record its location, and then go looking for a place to stay when I get there. + + [10]: http://www.vagabondjourney.com/why-i-began-booking-hostels-and-hotels-online/ (Why I Began Booking Hostels And Hotels Online) + +As far as my notes go, having my beds booking before arrival means I write down my hotel’s address and directions, along with contact phone numbers, email addresses, etc . . . I organize this information in sequential order, matching my prospective travel schedule. + +Accommodation information was once one of the main reasons to use a guidebook. Not anymore. Now instead of getting the low down on a small list of places that some guidebook writer supposedly visited some years before, you can up to the minute information and reviews from other travelers who actually stayed there and find out if there are availabilities prior to arrival. + +I often use the following sites to collect accommodation information or to make bookings: + +[Hostelbookers.com](http://www.hostelbookers.com/) +[Wikivoyage.org](http://www.wikivoyage.org/) +[Hostelz.com](http://www.hostelz.com/) +General search engine queries + +I don't use or recommend Tripadvisor. + +**7. Collecting information on activities/ my objectives for visiting.** + +This part of my notes is highly variable, and how thorough it gets depends on the complexity of what I intend to do in a certain location. Generally, I will record all of the addresses, directions, and additional info I think I may need. I find this information online, from looking at maps, or by communicating with people via email/ phone/ AFK. + +This is where having my own notes is essential, as I often find that I travel to places or do things that are not covered in Guidebooks or typical travel publications. + +**8. I then collecting maps and photos.** + +Collecting my own travel notes means that I also must get copies of my own maps. This is a good thing, as I can get the exact maps I need and I’m not just left with a general map of some city’s tourist district. I usually use Google Maps for this, and I take screenshots of close up, mid-range, and regional overview maps for each place I intend to go. I then save them to the folder where I’m collecting information for the journey with descriptive file names. + +If where I’m going appears as if it may be a little challenging to get to or a little confusing to ask directions to, I will also try to collect photos of local landmarks. This really helps if I’m trying to get to a place that I’m not sure of the precise location or the exact name, as I can show the photos to locals and get directions. I’ve found that locals may not know the proper place names or don’t use the same place names that outsiders use for many places that I’ve visited. When going to places that are outside the bounds of tourism, having photos of where you want to go will sometimes help you get there. + +**9. How I use this information. ** + +So I’ve collected all of this information into a folder that I keep on my computer, my tablet, and my smart phone, now how do I use it? + +As I only have one file for notes for a particular destination, all I have to do is create a shortcut to it on my smartphone or tablet and I can then pull it up in a matter of seconds. + +If I’m walking over to a booth to buy a train ticket I can pull up my notes on my phone without breaking stride, and by the time I get there I have a full timetable of all the trains that are running to my destination, of which I can pick the ones I prefer and request a ticket. + +If I’m going to get on a city bus and I’m not sure if I remembered what route number I want is, all I have to do is take out my phone and push a single button, do a little scroll, and there it is. + +If I need to call my hostel to get better directions all I need to do is pull up my travel note file on my phone, scroll down to the accommodation section, and copy and paste the number into my dialer. + +By having all the travel information I need in one easy to access, streamlined file I access it with lightning speed in real time and get to where I want to go. + +One of the biggest problems with Travel Guidebooks — digital as well as print — is that they’re colossal works packed with tons of information that you need to weed through to get to anything in particular. Desperately pawing through a guidebook in the streets looking for some essential bit of information that’s buried inside or to check a map makes you look foolish — it’s also an inconvenience and is dangerous. Each time you pull out a guidebook in public your sending a big message to everybody around you that you have no idea where you are or what you are doing. It makes you vulnerable. It’s also a big waste of time. + +When I pull out my phone in the street to check a map or an address I’m just some dude checking his phone like everybody else. + +### Conclusion + +Ditching Guidebooks wasn’t really an intentional thing for me. There was no singular moment when I declared that I wasn’t going to be lead around by some book that outlines someone else’s trip. I just stopped using them and never missed them. By taking my own notes I can make my own path, by collecting information from news reports, encyclopedias, blogs, forums, Wikivoyage, books, and maps I can find and get to pretty much any place in the world. + +Travel guides only cover a very small percentage of the places in any country, there is an entire world out there beyond the LP — though using them gives the impression that what they present are your only options. They’re not. World travel has now changed, the backpacker haunts of old are monstrosities of commerce today. We now need to cut own paths and collect our own travel information more than ever — and this means leaving mass-market travel guides behind.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lx post less is more post.txt b/lx post less is more post.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..0e90770 --- /dev/null +++ b/lx post less is more post.txt @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +lx-post - less is more post + +tags: #bk-redplanet +date: August 08, 2013 01:22:23 PM +--- + +My escapist tendencies evolved for a reason -- to escape the boredom of feeling trapped, but now that part is overactive compared to what I need now, so it would make sense to trim it back. + +Also, with regard to how I see myself, my life and my traveling, i like the tetherball analogy, I have to periodically kick myself out in the wild blue yonder, but I also seem to need that tether holding me back, drawing me back to some place (which changes from time to time) and then the cord winds around that pole increases it's speed until it stops and reverses the process again. + +Am I missing connections with people because of that? + + +Wanting is natural. it's part of what makes us human. It's part of what makes us want to see the world, to meet and connect with others. + +But this basic desire, to want, often catches us off guard and steers us into want things. Now I'm not so asetic as to think that there isn't something appealing about a nice home to live in, a nice desk to sit at, a nice computer to write on, a nice car to drive and so on, but none of these things comes without a cost. + +In fact, Problems result that include obesity and related diseases, massive consumer debt, shallow consumerism, overwork + + + + +“The most important thing is, what do you want in your life, right now? What you want in this very moment makes your mind, and that mind makes your life.” + +—Zen Master Seung Sahn + +The Compass of Zen diff --git a/lx post middle ground.txt b/lx post middle ground.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..6c967b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/lx post middle ground.txt @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +lx-post - middle ground + +There is a middle ground which has always left me cold. I am comfortable at the extremes -- everything or nothing. I've been comfortable with steamed towels and fully reclining seat beds in first class, driven 100,000 automobiles and eaten at some of the most expensive restaurants in New York (all of that was on someone else's dime, lest you think I am or ever have been rich, I am not, nor have I ever been). I was comfortable at that extreme, but I've also ridden in the cattle car that is Southwest Airlines and consumed $.39 Tina's burritos three times a day in the squalor of the trailer park I was living in at the time. I was also comfortable with that. More so in fact since any sustained life of luxury must eventually confront the backs on which it is made possible(*Let's not kid ourselves, me eating $.39 burritos in a trailer park in California is still very much luxury.*). The point isn't the things I have done so much as the simple fact that I am most comfortable at extremes. + +It's things in the middle that make me uncomfortable, make me want to run for the hills. Business class, Chipolte, suburbs, The Gap. The middle smacks of mediocrity. It's build in to the language -- medium gives us mediocrity (*mediocritatem*); middle, middling. Interestingly, all manner of words surrounding mediocre and middle don't acquire their modern, negative connotations until the late 16c. + +It's possible this sort of dualist thinking, this flip-flopping from one extreme to another is a personality flaw of mine. It's also possibly not even mine, but something culturally inherited as it turns out, so much of what we consider ourselves, our beliefs, turn out to be. + +Some cultures venerate the middle way. The Golden Mean. The Middle Way. Definitions of what exactly is meant by the middle way differ somewhat around China and the rest of Asia. Buddhists see it as the path by which we gain insight by transcending all the various opposing statements about existence. The middle way is the way by which we avoid the pain of life's confusing, seemingly endless duality. + +In China, where Confucianism has a long storied history, the middle way seems to mean something more like the path on which one finds balance. Sometimes it's not translated as the middle way, but as the Doctrine of the Mean. Ezra Pound liked to call it the "unswerving pivot". + +It's possible I'm twisting some possibly suspect translations of ancient texts, themselves culturally tied to the time in which they were composed to fit my own ends(*Hmm, probably I should apply for a job in academia*), but if *all* knowledge is culturally imprisoned then it seems to me that nihilism is the only answer and, while on my bleaker days I find myself feeling a bit nihilistic, by and large I refuse to give in to that line of reasoning. + +All of which is spineless qualification of why I think the middle way consist not of actually staying on a middle path, but of balancing one's center between extremes. The farm house to retreat from the city. The midnight burrito snack when the sustenance of [Alinea][1] has long disappeared. + +To be sure, that's not what Confucius wrote. Nor does it seem to be what the author of The Doctrine of the Mean(*The authorship of the The Doctrine of the Mean is somewhat debatable, though it seems most scholars ascribe it [Zisi, a grandson of Confucius][2].*) meant exactly. From my research it seems that most western scholars (the only ones I can read since I don't read Mandarin) say that the doctrine of the mean means what you would expect -- adhering to moderation, avoiding extremes. + +You don't have to step so far outside of Western culture to find this celebration of moderation. Stoicism touch on this too in a variety of contexts, suggesting that we avoid becoming accustomed to luxury lest we become incapable of appreciating anything else. + +If all you drink is $100 bottles of wine, that $2 bottle will taste like shit. But if most of the wine your drink is cheap then the occasional $100 bottle will be a revelation. + +Again, that's me, not stoicism which, so far as I know, never turns the watch out for the acclimatizing of luxury idea on its ear to consider the acclimatizing effects of poverty. In other words perhaps we ought to really splash out from time to time so we do not become too inured to self-imposed poverty. + +Of course if your poverty is not self-imposed then you have no choice, which is perhaps at least some of the reason any philosophical system concerned with transcendence of daily existence will necessarily to value austerity over luxury -- to do otherwise would be to severely limit your audience(*which isn't to say that I think it's all a conspiracy to keep poor people happy with their lot and less likely to agitate, though certianly there are elements of that in nearly every philophical system since every philosophical system is born out of cultures and civilizations with stratfied power structures and a vested iinterest in maintaining them. The Tao to Ching being one possible exception to that general rule.*). Better to stick with something that will make the greatest number of people feel better about themselves and their lives. Hence the middle way it would seem. + +But what if the center, the middle way, the point of balance is actually found by hopping back and forth between extremes? + +I don't know that it is, I only know that I feel comfortable at the extremes, but never either one for too long. + + + +[1]: https://content.alinearestaurant.com/html/index.html +[2]: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Zhou/personszisi.html +[3]: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Classics/zhongyong.html diff --git a/lx post once-and-future.txt b/lx post once-and-future.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..fd33621 --- /dev/null +++ b/lx post once-and-future.txt @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ +To recognize that what has been lost is a part of what remains, however, still leaves questions of scale and character. How large an absence are we talking about? Where do we see it's effects? What is the complete inventory of the missing? The answers to these questions not only shape the way we measure the world around us, but also help reveal the character of nature itself--including human nature. + +manifesto: + +walk +take the stairs +turn of the air conditioning +Light a fire in the fireplace +That which is old and useful has proven itself (like cast iron) +That which is very old may contain wisdom. +That which is very old may be utter bollocks. +everything you know is wrong. including this. +You are responsible for what you put into the world. + +"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." + +Note: I have never designed a building, butchered a hog, comforted the dying or died gallantly + +I recently made some changes to the metadata markup on this site. Previously I was using schema.org-based microdata to markup articles. I'm still doing that, but I've added support for Microformats as well. + +The reason I added support for Microformats is that people are actually using them to do interesting things, whereas Schema.org data pretty much helps Google and Bing generate so-called rich snippets in search results[^1]. I suspect Schema.org data will likely remain a way to tell search engines what your content is (until the search engines decide to depricate it and do something else) and not something that gets much traction elsewhere. + +On the other hand people are actually building interesting stuff around Microformats -- whole distributed conversation tools in fact, which is what orginally peaked my interest. I would like to create a way for conversations to happen here, there and everywhere, as Dr Suess would say. + +To that end I've also pushed out a self-hosted commenting system. At the moment there's nothing particularly special about it, but when I get some free time I plan to add support for webmentions which will allow me to, in IndieWeb parlance, "backfeed"[^2] comments posted elsewhere, like Twitter or Facebook, so that they +'re also displayed here as well. + +That's nice. Or it will be if/when I get it working. It will also be nice to eliminate the potential for third-parties like Disqus to track my readers (I don't know for sure that they were, but it seems likely). I'm also planning to move from Google Analytics to self hosted analytics via Piwik and AWStats. That way there will be nothing external to this site tracking your visits. + +I can't change the web and all the siloed data, tracking beacons, privacy invasion and so on, but I can change my little corner of the web so that's the ultimate goal. + + +send posts from here to Twitter and then pull back any comments or replies on Twitter and display them here, hopefully making for a more centralized conversation rather than a rambling, difficult to track conversation spread out across several silos and websites. + + +[^1]: If you know if any sites doing anything interesting with Schema.org data, let me know. +[^2]: Yes, that's a terrible name. No, I don't have a better one. Same can be said for another IndieWeb term, "selfdogfooding", which totally makes sense to developers, but to anyone else does not at all sound like something you'd want to do. + +references: + +http://mattgemmell.com/permanence/ +http://tantek.com/2013/073/b1/silos-vs-open-social-web +http://tantek.com/presentations/2014/05/indieweb/ diff --git a/lx post physical world post idea.txt b/lx post physical world post idea.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..9020700 --- /dev/null +++ b/lx post physical world post idea.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +lx-post - physical world post idea + +http://blog.jgc.org/2011/08/lost-world-of-physicality.html + diff --git a/lx post quotes.txt b/lx post quotes.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..0478e7d --- /dev/null +++ b/lx post quotes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +lx-post - quotes + +You have to learn to get up from the table when love is no longer being served. - Nina Simone + +as Bastian puts it, “Pain is a kind of shortcut to mindfulness: it makes us suddenly aware of everything in the environment. It brutally draws us into a virtual sensory awareness of the world, much like meditation.” - http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/pain-really-make-us-gain + +intuition is really a sudden imersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it's all written there. - paulo coelho the alchemist + +it's been said that we just don't recognize the significant moments of our lives while they are happening. We grow complacent with ideas, or things or people and we take them for granted and it's usually not until that thing is about to be taken away from you that you've realized how wrong you've been that you realized how much you need it, how much you love it. + +those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who only dream at night - edgar allen poe + +We tend to think of the erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way. +~ Audre Lorde + + + 1. Stop buying stuff you don't need + 2. Pay off all your credit cards + 3. Get rid of all the stuff that doesn't fit in your house/apartment (storage lockers, etc.) + 4. Get rid of all the stuff that doesn't fit on the first floor of your house (attic, garage, etc.) + 5. Get rid of all the stuff that doesn't fit in one room of your house + 6. Get rid of all the stuff that doesn't fit in a suitcase + 7. Get rid of all the stuff that doesn't fit in a backpack + 8. Get rid of the backpack + + +I used to think I traveled to learn about different cultures or broaden my perspective. + +And those are certainly nice ancillary benefits to travel. But I’ve realized that the real reason that I travel is for the brief glimpses of beauty. Whether it’s playing soccer with kids on the beach in Mozambique or spotting my first Orca in New Zealand, my travels have provided me with these perfect moments that will hang in my memory forever. No price tag can be assigned to them, no photo can capture them – but those moments are waiting out there and every time I travel I seem to stumble into a few. That’s why I keep doing it. That’s why I’m in love with it. + +http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/10-02/how-i-travel-steve-bramucci.html + + +Other than thoughts, there is no such thing as the world. - Sri Ramana Maharshi diff --git a/lx post shaving seasons.txt b/lx post shaving seasons.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..1508c10 --- /dev/null +++ b/lx post shaving seasons.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This becomes a day like any other that is somehow different in way you cannot put your finger on. The sun rises a bit later, the temperature is a bit warmer, the river lower, the trees still bare. + +Ever since they moved daylight savings time back the world has felt a bit off to me. Not that I put much stock in time. I rarely know what time it is other than in relation to something I need to do. For example I know I need to put my kids to bed in 10 minutes and therefore I know it's in the neighborhhod of seven o'clock. But otherwise... + +Still when casting about for days to mark as somehow different than the ones right around them, March 9 or so doesn't actually seem a bad one. At least in my climate. North of here is still caked in snow and ice, well below freezing. But in my world, it's sunny and nearly 75. It might not last. It's possible another snow storm is yet to come, but you have to cast your lot with some version of the future. So I shaved my beard. When I was done I felt a bit lighter, a bit brighter. So I shaved my head too. + +It's lately how I mark the passing of seasons. In Autumn and winter, more hair. In Spring and summer, less. It's a small thing. Like falling leaves or opening buds, but personally at least it is perhaps more. It is something anyway. + +There's something about spring here in athens, even if you can't pinpoint the time. Little things; people shedding practical footwear, fleeces and other winter acutrimonts. + +It's the time of year I start fermenting, creating stuff. Planting things, building things. Releasing books. travesties. diff --git a/lx post storms.txt b/lx post storms.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..6ca1293 --- /dev/null +++ b/lx post storms.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14 @@ +lx-post - storms + +The night I was born there was a huge storm. At least if my parents are to be believed. My mother still claims that the storm, and a broken window in her hospital room are the reason she can down with ppnemona the next day. All I know is that I have always loved storms, not just sitting and listening to them -- though I like that too -- but getting out in the them, or just before them, when the lightening is still a ways off, flashing the horizen and the dark thunderheads have obscured the light of day, the wind is starting to pick up, it's as if the world were waking up, finally coming alivve with something massive and important to say, you can literally feel it in the air, electricity and ozone are a potent mix, they smell something like freedome to me. + +A good storm is my favorite time to get out in nature -- camping, hiking the high country or swimming in the ocean. I've been surfing as hurricanes approached, swam in Mexico while lighten struck the sea in front of me and I still love to be out on the shore when storms arrive. + +I've been thinking about storms. It's the time of year to do that here in the American South. More than stormms though, I've been thinking about what + + +I'm not a huge fan of torrential downpours. Snow is fun for the first three days. Torandos are so far outside anything I've experienced they remain unfathomable to me. I've been through two relatively minor hurricanes and I'm not sure I'd enjoy the full frontal assault, but a good thunderstorm is beautiful thing. + +It's one of the things I love about the American south. Nearly every afternoon in the summer you can count on some sort of storm. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it's just lightening and thunder off in the distance, but the sky nearly always delivers around here. Occassionally it over delivers and destroys the roof of your porch, but that's how life goes, you have to accept of bad with your good, it's inevitable. And hey, now we can grow full sun plants on the porch. + + diff --git a/lx post vacations.txt b/lx post vacations.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..025f94c --- /dev/null +++ b/lx post vacations.txt @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +lx-post - vacations + +From Notes from the Road: http://www.notesfromtheroad.com/greatbasin/coalpits_wash_01.html + +The American workforce works in a ghostly robotic way. We obsess over multitasking and email, oversharing and contributing to these habits of continual connectedness. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from a friend who told me to end my relationship with email. If you want to get something done, he said, pick up the phone. + +Americans feel they have to justify even a little but of time off. I 'm helping family, but just email or call or set up a video conference if you need something. + +Companies also expect their American employees to stay connected even while on vacation. And the emails never stop. If an American employee stops managing his emails for a few days, he will often worry about the onslaught of emails building up. If he just manages those emails, his return to the office will be more sane. + +Nurses who work in elder care facilities and with middle-aged adults have been seeing unsettling trends: American adults are beginning to have those same listless, disconnected traits that previously, nurses only identified in nursing home patients. + +As justification for the American work habit, I have heard that "the United States is the big leagues, if you want to make it big, you come to the U.S., but if you want to have vacation and hang out, you can go to Europe. + +But the comparison is false, because as the United States has adopted a no-vacation work ethic, It's productivity and economy have declined relative to first-world countries who offer adequate vacation. The United States' prosperity index has been plummeting in comparison to other first-world countries where vacation time is standard. + +But even among those who do plan vacation, About 20 percent end up having to delay or cancel their plans because either they or their partner's work obligations forces them to stay behind. + +As our work culture forces us deeper and deeper into this weird, robotic work mentality, the health of our workforce deteriotes. Just in the past twenty years, since about the year 1990, the obesity rate in the United States has ballooned. + +American billionaire Warren Buffett has explained that the U.S. companies health care expenses puts them at a gross disadvantage against other companies. Comparing the U.S. to most of the rest of the world, the United States spends about seventeen percent of GDP on health care, while most of the rest of the world spends only nine percent. + +Also, info links: + +http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts +http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_employment_leave_by_country +http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speed-up-american-workers-long-hours +http://www.grist.org/living/2011-06-28-the-medium-chill
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lx redesign ideas.txt b/lx redesign ideas.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..93d171a --- /dev/null +++ b/lx redesign ideas.txt @@ -0,0 +1,86 @@ +## Like the big images at the top: +<http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/syrian-refugees/2013/12/03/refuge-stories-from-the-syrian-exodus/> + + + +Also big images: <http://ridestori.es/> + + +More big images: <http://www.cast83.com/> + +--- + +Awesome photo essay/essays in this site: <http://www.tylerfinck.com/2014/01/mount-monadnock/> + +Like the long thin images on the homepage: +<http://www.kennethreitz.org/> + + +like the text/images used on notes from the road about page: <http://www.notesfromtheroad.com/about/> + +really like the blockquotes on: <http://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/overkill/> + + +really like the little expanding map bubble on these permalinks: +<https://hi.co/moments/qdvswsvq> Also the textured bottom instead of hard edge, though maybe that's a little to cutesy + + + +--- + +Adelle and open sans are both nice: <http://www.typewolf.com/site-of-the-day/fonts/adelle> + +Some nice typography examples here <http://3.7designs.co/blog/2008/06/10-examples-of-beautiful-css-typography-and-how-they-did-it/> + +Want to implement fragmentions: +<http://www.kevinmarks.com/fragmentions.html> + +Add Permashort links to notes when longer than what's pushed to twitter: +http://indiewebcamp.com/Twitter#Why_permashortcitation_instead_of_a_link + +Like this idea of acknowledgments instead of colophon: http://www.macstories.net/acknowledgements/ + +stop using title tags maybe? +<http://blog.paciellogroup.com/2013/01/using-the-html-title-attribute-updated/> + +Move away from storing everything in DB maybe? Python lib to interact with git repo: <http://www.samba.org/~jelmer/dulwich/docs/tutorial/repo.html#creating-new-commits> + +## Content: +### Privacy policy examples: +* http://www.lorriethomas.com/lorrie-thomas-ross-privacy.php +* http://charlieharvey.org.uk/page/privacy +* https://warpuni.com/terms-site/privacy-policy/ +* + +###Locations + +Steal this js for getting location from browser: +https://kylewm.com/admin/new?type=checkin + + +### Links section: + +pull in link page text using readability filter to get something simple: +<https://github.com/buriy/python-readability> + +### Comments + +for webmentions: +https://github.com/bear/ronkyuu + +### Photos + +* workflow for photos: + * edit, organize, tag (including geo), title and caption in darktable + * export to folder, appending tags to Exif data + * add metadata file to folder to define album and add descriptive text. If no metadata then no album. + * Upload folder as zip file and unzip via web interface + * scan all images and extract metadata, title, caption, tags + * add photo to db along with some meta and title/caption + * sidecar json file with all data on disk mirroring file name + * resize for responsive galleries and compress image to mimic imagoptim preserving original + * rebuild photo pages + * optionally push to flickr: + +* tools: + * for reading exif: <http://smarnach.github.io/pyexiftool/> diff --git a/map of free camping areas.txt b/map of free camping areas.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0d6ff1 --- /dev/null +++ b/map of free camping areas.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +--- +title: Map of Free Camping Areas +date: 2015-02-16T21:02:20Z +source: http://freecampsites.net/ +tags: camping, maps, travel, #lux + +--- + +**Our community provides the best free camping information available.** Free campgrounds can be hard to find. Freecampsites.net makes it easy. We give you a simple, map based search engine to find free and cheap camping areas. Community reviews and ratings provide you with up to date information and help you select the best camp site for your next camping trip. + +**This is a platform for sharing** campgrounds and camp sites you have discovered. We are community driven, and while we will be adding many free camping spots, we hope that you will add some of your favorite camping places as well. By **sharing camping information freely**, we can all spend less time researching campgrounds, spend less money, and more time camping. If everyone contributes a few campsites, we'll all have more places to go camping. + +**Please come back and let us know what you find!** User reviews help other campers decide on their next camping destination. The more information you have, the more informed your decisions. + +Whether you enjoy tent camping, car camping or RV camping, **our goal is to help you find the best places to go camping.** We believe that free camping areas are often the most beautiful and peaceful camp sites. Our focus is on public lands. **You own these lands and you are entitled to use them.** We especially like camping on Forest Service land, BLM (Bureau of Land Management) areas, WMA's (Wildlife Management Areas) and county or city parks. We hope you enjoy the same style of camping. + +We are not actively seeking Wal-Marts, truckstops or other parking lots and will not be adding very many of these. There are enough Wal-Mart and truck stop directories out there already. However, if a member of **the community** finds one of these locations to be useful for overnight RV parking and creates an entry, we may approve the listing.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/mastering any skill 4H chef.txt b/mastering any skill 4H chef.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..0cd2134 --- /dev/null +++ b/mastering any skill 4H chef.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +title: Notes on 4H Chef book +date: 20141208 22:35:48 +tags: #learning +--- + +DiSSS + +Deconstructing -- break a big thing down into its constitute components and figure out where you have failed in the past, where others have failed and for the first five times you do something, avoid those points of failure while you build the habit (the five part comes from nike running data) + +Selection -- Use 80/20 idea to find the 20% of tools and techniques that produce the 80% of results + +Sequencing - what if you did things in the opposite order + +Stakes -- if you don't do it what will happen? If there's no incentive then you need to create one artifically, like making a bet with friends and so on (stick.com is a public accountibilty service). + +Simplify -- cut down remove what you can and focus on what you want to learn diff --git a/meditation notes.txt b/meditation notes.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..d8569a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/meditation notes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8 @@ +http://forum.earlyretirementextreme.com/viewtopic.php?t=5188&p=74622#p74622 + +I'm also kinda curious as to what the use [of meditation] is. In particular, will meditation give me superpowers or is it simply the solution to a problem I don't have. + +I used to have an internal dialogue going at all times. Then I successfully experimented with turning it off simply by stopping the train of thought and "thinking about nothing" whenever I did my long walks (commute). I've fixed my breathing and my "hockey vision" (useful for walking faster than everybody else and not bumping into cell phone zombies) in the same way. Later I tried to switch from thinking in spoken language to geometric and numerically intuitive ways with some success. I let my intuition solve most larger problems and it's simply a question of waiting for inspiration to come. That is, set up the environment [by uploading the facts] and then sit and wait for the quarry to walk by [the solution] and shoot it [formulate it actively].---Rather than trying to farm for it. + +Consequentially, I can't really relate to the "calming the mind" ... maybe it's because it's already calm? + diff --git a/minimal debian install.txt b/minimal debian install.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..76bfb75 --- /dev/null +++ b/minimal debian install.txt @@ -0,0 +1,102 @@ +Minimal Debian install for a nice, lightweight deskop + +Download and burn Debian netinst CD + +install base system + +Then boot and login as root. + +vi /etc/network/interfaces +#add these lines: +auto wlan0 +iface wlan0 inet dhcp + wpa-ssid YOUR-SSID-HERE + wpa-psk YOUR-PASSWORD-HERE + +restart and pig google to confirm you have wifi + +#then install the basics + +apt-get install sudo vim-gtk tmux git zsh ufw curl Xorg openbox tint2 lxrandr htop terminator conky pm-utils zip unzip dmz-cursor-theme python-pip python-dev python3 python3-dev network-manager-gnome clipit + +visudo + +> # User privilege specification +> root ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL +> lxf ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL + +# at this point you can pretty much login as your user and startx + +if necessary, use lxrandr to change screen res + +# switch to zsh: + +chsh -s $(which zsh) +sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)" + +Then pull down dotfiles and start symlinking + +# browsers +apt-get install chromium +vim /etc/apt/sources.list # add: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com debian import +apt-get update +apt-get install firefox +update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/x-www-browser x-www-browser /usr/bin/firefox 100 + +# download crunchbang theme +tar -vxf Downloads/crunchy-dark-grey.tar.gz +git clone https://github.com/CBPP/cbpp-icon-theme.git + +#set a decent desktop: +nitrogen ~/Pictures/Desktops/ + +#set up vim: +mkdir -p .vim/bundle +git clone https://github.com/gmarik/Vundle.vim.git ~/.vim/bundle/Vundle.vim + +#Add dropbox: +sudo dpkg -i Downloads/dropbox_2015.02.12_i386.deb +~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd +echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf; sudo sysctl -p +dropbox start +dropbox status + + +xscreensaver + +# download some decent fonts and put them in ~/.fonts then run: +fc-cache -fv + +# then get better font smoothing: +echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/no1wantdthisname/ppa/ubuntu trusty main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/infinality.list +echo "deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/no1wantdthisname/ppa/ubuntu trusty main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/infinality.list +sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys E985B27B +sudo apt-get update +sudo apt-get install fontconfig-infinality +sudo bash /etc/fonts/infinality/infctl.sh setstyle +sudo vim /etc/profile.d/infinality-settings.sh + +alsa alsa-tools alsa-utils vrms + +#music: +apt-get install mpd mpc ncmpcpp + +#mail: +apt-get install mutt urlview notmuch gnomekeyring python-gnomekeyring msmtp msmtp-gnome abook w3m +python dotfiles/gnomekeyringstuff/msmtp-gnome-tool.py --username luxagraf@fastmail.fm --server mail.messagingengine.com -s +chmod 600 .msmtprc +python dotfiles/gnomekeyringstuff/msmtp-gnome-tool.py --username luxagraf@fastmail.fm --server mail.messagingengine.com -g + +# misc +apt-get install calibre vlc abiword redshift newsbeuter + +#postgres for psycog2 +apt-get install postgresql postgresql-9.4-postgis-2.1 postgresql-server-dev-9.4 python3-dev + +# this is the basic command for launching standalone browser apps +exo-open ~/.local/share/applications/chrome-confeenhjpkmbceaenohemhdbecmk-Default.desktop" + +# cal stuff I haven't actually used as of this writing: +apt-get install khal +apt-get install +apt-get install vdirsyncer diff --git a/missionaries-that-dont-suck.txt b/missionaries-that-dont-suck.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..87fdfd7 --- /dev/null +++ b/missionaries-that-dont-suck.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +via: http://mobilecodgers.blogspot.com/2015/07/moments-with-missionary-dealing-with.html + +I favor sending: + +SCIENCE missionaries-- to debunk superstition and arouse wonder in the natives. + +ENGINEERING missionaries--- to inspire a can-do spirit in the natives. + +AGNOSTIC missionaries to acquaint the natives with the ultimate mystery of life---to demonstrate to them tolerance for ambiguity. (the joyous philosophy of i don't know ism) + +HISTORY missionaries to unfold the story of how we got to here. diff --git a/mistakenly seeking solitude..txt b/mistakenly seeking solitude..txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..20d94ce --- /dev/null +++ b/mistakenly seeking solitude..txt @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +--- +title: Mistakenly seeking solitude. +date: 2014-12-11T01:36:33Z +source: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xge/143/5/1980/ +tags: #lux + +--- + +Connecting with others increases happiness, but strangers in close proximity routinely ignore each other. Why? Two reasons seem likely: Either solitude is a more positive experience than interacting with strangers, or people misunderstand the consequences of distant social connections. To examine the experience of connecting to strangers, we instructed commuters on trains and buses to connect with a stranger near them, to remain disconnected, or to commute as normal (Experiments 1a and 2a). In both contexts, participants reported a more positive (and no less productive) experience when they connected than when they did not. Separate participants in each context, however, expected precisely the opposite outcome, predicting a more positive experience in solitude (Experiments 1b and 2b). This mistaken preference for solitude stems partly from underestimating others’ interest in connecting (Experiments 3a and 3b), which in turn keeps people from learning the actual consequences of social interaction (Experiments 4a and 4b). The pleasure of connection seems contagious: In a laboratory waiting room, participants who were talked to had equally positive experiences as those instructed to talk (Experiment 5). Human beings are social animals. Those who misunderstand the consequences of social interactions may not, in at least some contexts, be social enough for their own well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/more la.txt b/more la.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..9d278e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/more la.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +More LA + +Little boy with bags slung over his shoulder slowly marches up water-stained, gum-covered stairs, one hand balancing him on a green iron railing. His hair flutters in the backwash of diesel buses passing on the bridge overhead. His head bobs, he smiles to himself, at nothing, no one save that he is able. + +Bicyclist riding the bridge look like strobelights flickering through the heavy gaps in the concrete bridge railins, strobe like a dream machine turning. Pigeons flutter, glide down and settle to roost, huddled under the underside of the bridge. Birds sing - sparrows chirping, flitter beneath the BMWs, pathfinders, mocking birds belt out obnoxious cover songs.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/nature does not hurry.txt b/nature does not hurry.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..d082847 --- /dev/null +++ b/nature does not hurry.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +Lao tzu + +“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” ~ Lao Tzu
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/never pay taxes again.txt b/never pay taxes again.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..776a45b --- /dev/null +++ b/never pay taxes again.txt @@ -0,0 +1,79 @@ +Never Pay Taxes Again | Go Curry Cracker! + +From <http://www.gocurrycracker.com/never-pay-taxes-again/>: + +# Never Pay Taxes Again + +[](http://www.gocurrycracker.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/t1larg.tax-forms.t1larg.jpg)Recently I received an email from one of the big brokerage firms, titled “Savvy Year-End Tax Strategies.” It contained much advice, such as “Consider contributing as much as you can to a 401(k)” and “Be careful when selling highly appreciated assets, such as stocks, land, fine art, precious metals, or antiques.” This might be considered good advice by some, but I just call it, “Boring!” + +Benjamin Franklin once wrote that nothing is certain except death and taxes. I beg to differ. I personally expect to never pay taxes again, legally and respectfully. + +Perhaps you would like to do the same? + +There are many reasons to not pay taxes. Some may have political, moral, or philosophical reasons for doing so. Maybe you don’t want to pay for wars, for example. But the one that is strongest for me is also the most straight forward: If you don’t need to pay taxes, you don’t need to save as much + +Let’s use an example to make this clear. A typical middle class family man in the United States goes out for dinner with his wife at one of the nation’s many fine fast food establishments, paying $20 for a couple super sized mechanically separated chicken sandwiches, oily, starchy, and salty side dishes, insulin-bomb sodas, and artificially flavored and colored desserts. Ignoring the long term health costs of such a decision, how much does Joe Average pay for this meal? $20? More like $33.50 + +Joe Average paid for his meal with after tax dollars. Assuming a 25% marginal tax rate, social security and medicare taxes (both individual and employer), Joe had to earn $33.50 in order to have a $20 bill in his wallet to pay for that meal, paying $13.50 in tax before even walking into the restaurant. Including a 10% sales tax already included in the $20 total check, $15.50 was paid in tax. If they drove to the restaurant, they even paid tax on gas + +For the same $33.50 in food spending (there is no sales tax on groceries in Washington State), we enjoyed a couple organic salads, grass-fed steaks, a side of vegetables with garlic and bacon, a couple glasses of wine, and had $10 left over. Not paying taxes has its rewards. + +So how do we eliminate taxes? All we need to do is follow 4 simple rules: + + * Choose leisure over work + * Live well for less + * Leverage ROTH IRA Conversions + * Harvest Capital Losses AND Capital Gains + +#### _Choose Leisure Over Work_ + +The tax laws in the US target people who work for a living. If you get a paycheck, the US government classifies that paycheck as Earned Income, with special taxes just for you. This is one part of the reason that Warren Buffet says his secretary pays more tax than he does. Social Security and Medicare taxes are only applied to Earned Income, 15.3% tax in total for most people. + +The only way to avoid paying these taxes is to not work. Now leisure comes with an added bonus. I intend to never have earned income again, completely eliminating this tax + +#### _Live Well For Less_ + +The more a person or family spends a year, the more likely they will be required to pay income taxes, due to the graduated tax brackets that exist in the US and many other countries. Using the 2012 tax rules, a married couple can earn up to **$19,500 a year** without paying tax. This is because the government allows us a standard deduction for a married couple of $11,900 and an exemption of $3,800 per person. Other deductions can be applied, such as the $17,000 for 401k contributions, raising the untaxeed income level to $36,500. (That advice from the big brokerage firm hit the spot on this one.) Normally the deductions are increased every year with inflation or some arbitrary level decided by Congress + +Once income and spending exceeds this level, taxes must be paid. Unless… + +Unless that income comes from qualified dividends or long term capital gains. In this case, a married couple can have $19,500 a year in income AND **$70,700 in investment income**, TAX FREE (if that isn’t a strong signal to not work, I don’t know what is.) + +If spending is kept below these levels (and thus incomes) then there will be no taxes + +We live luxurious lives, better than kings of yesteryear, for about [$36k a year](http://www.gocurrycracker.com/expenses/). It turns out spending more than that [wouldn’t make us any happier](http://www.gocurrycracker.com/twice-as-much-money-wont-make-us-twice-as-happy/). + +But wait, there’s more + +#### _Leverage ROTH IRA Conversions_ + +If we follow normal tax advice during our working days, we will retire early with a 401k or IRA or two. Except under special rules, this money can’t be spent until we turn 59.5, upon which it is taxed. But there is a way to avoid this, by converting it to a ROTH IRA. Withdrawals from a ROTH IRA are tax free for life + +Once we’ve chosen leisure over work, we can convert our 401ks and IRAs to a ROTH IRA, a small amount each year. Any dollars converted to a ROTH are considered income, but we can earn up to $19,500 a year and pay no tax. The Mad Fientist explains more in a [great post on his blog](http://www.madfientist.com/traditional-ira-vs-roth-ira/). + +Other income sources can contribute to this $19,500 limit, such as interest on bonds, rental income, short term capital gains, and earned income. Some deductions can also be made, such as capital losses and HSA contributions (a common option for people buying health insurance through the new government exchanges under the ACA.) + +#### Harvest Capital Losses AND Capital Gains + +Harvesting Capital Losses is a common practice. If you sold a stock for less than what you paid for it, you’ve had a capital loss. This loss can be used to offset capital gains and, if it is big enough, even up to $3,000 per year of Earned Income. There is a special rule for Wash Sales that needs to be watched out for, but the Mad Fientist wrote a great article about [harvesting capital losses](http://www.madfientist.com/tax-loss-harvesting/) that can guide us. + +For stocks that have gone up in value, normally taxes must be paid on the gains. But… not if those gains are less than $70,700 (again, 2012 values) AND our earned income and taxable interest is sufficiently low that it is taxed at the 10% or 15% marginal rate. + +In our own case, if we assume that our $36k a year spending comes from Qualified Dividends and Long Term Capital Gains, then we have an extra $34,700 in tax free capital gains to play with. Why not sell some extra stock, locking in that $34,700 gain, and immediately buy it back to raise our basis. + +For example, let’s say we bought some of the VTI ETF over 1-year ago for $50,000, and it is now worth $84,700. It must be over 1 year ago in order to be considered a Long Term Capital Gain, an important time frame. Short Term Capital Gains are taxed at the normal marginal rate. Our basis in the stock is $50,000, with a $34,700 long term gain. When we sell it, we will pay NO TAX since we are keeping our total investment income below $70,700 (which also includes our qualified dividend income.) When we buy the VTI ETF back, our basis is now $84,700. The gain is locked in tax free, forever (Update: Mad Fientist has added a post on [Tax Gain Harvesting](http://www.madfientist.com/tax-gain-harvesting/) as well.) + +One item to be careful of is new with the Affordable Care Act. It is possible for an early retiree to get massive health care subsidies. At our $36k per year spending level, we qualify for several thousand dollars of assistance. This is based on a family’s income, and subsidies are paid up to 400% of the Federal Poverty Level. For a family of 2 (us), 400% of the FPL is $62,040 in 2013. Being aware of this threshold is important when deciding how much of a ROTH IRA Conversion to make or how much Capital Gain to harvest. + +Following these 4 simple rules, it is possible for any US resident to never pay taxes again. Maybe following these guidelines will help you retire earlier and live better. All transactions must be completed by December 31st + +—————————————————————————————————— + +[](http://www.gocurrycracker.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/uncle_sam_taxes.jpg)A special note: +Taxes are used for many useful and good purposes for the collective good, such as building roads, the filming of Sesame Street, and helping the disadvantaged. Isn’t it part of our moral obligation to help pay for these things? + +I believe this is true, although it isn’t necessary to pay it annually. The taxes we paid during our working years were many, disproportionate to our use of roads (we bike and walk instead of drive) or our viewing of Sesame Street (we don’t own or watch TV.) + +When it comes to helping others, there are many ways to help. The government helps in some ways, but other organizations do as well, more so even. Those organizations are very receptive to donations of both time and money. I encourage the giving of both. + +As an added bonus, donations of cash or capital assets are tax deductible And the donation of appreciated assets eliminates all capital gains taxes for both parties. Win win. If this sounds intriguing, check out a post by Jim Collins about making the most of your donations, [How to Give Like a Billionaire](http://jlcollinsnh.com/2012/02/08/how-to-give-like-a-billionaire/) diff --git a/newstuff.txt b/newstuff.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..dd576cc --- /dev/null +++ b/newstuff.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +newstuff + +The thing to remember is that it keeps going and going and going no matter what. The particulars change. This time it's this and that and last time it that and this and next time it might be this and this or that and that, cats in hats probably as it all winds down there won't be much besides rats. All of this has happened before, all of it will happen again. What makes this go round different is that it's yours, your turn, your time. Your time at the helm during the storms when the southward rolling breakers coming up behind you, so big they grab the back of the boat and heave it forward pitching it sideways and down, throwing it skittering across the water as the waves roll under it, headed for the southern shores, the canal run, the end of days run, the run to the next ocean, to the places you've never seen or dreamed and that's what you do, you lash yourself to the mast and you ride the ride. It's what the last guy did; it's what the first guy did. It's what the next guy is going to do too. There's a little piece of you in everyone, everyone in you and everyone full of piss and shit and vinegar. That's what you get leaving the wine out in the heat again. So you ride and ride and then you get off and someone else gets on. And it goes, always the ride goes. + +Whenever I was off writing for a while and came back my wife would ask me why are you still chasing her after all these, all these words why are you still following her, she doesn't even know who you are and all I could do was stare at her and think because she is there, because she was there, because I want to find her again, she is out there somewhere, somewhere right now she the hem of her dress is brushing atop her knees as she crosses and uncrosses her legs a dinner, the softness of the fabric, the roughness of the white table cloth the clatter of heels on the side walk, the rustle of newspapers fold and unfolded, laid on the table, the honk of of horns around the corner, trash trucks, the sweet smell of garbage caught in the cool night air, the blast of air brakes and white breath of diesel steam chasing the drain pipes out of that concrete canyon up fourteen stories high until it disappears into the bruised black night. She is out there, she is always going to be out there until I find her. + +Jimmy never asked. He always knew I think. Or suspected at least. But he never asked, we never spoke of it. A perfect little army of two, silence. We had other things to chase.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/notes-podcast-interview-bumfuzzle.txt b/notes-podcast-interview-bumfuzzle.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..619c833 --- /dev/null +++ b/notes-podcast-interview-bumfuzzle.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +Throughout the vast, vast majority of modern history there is no concept of retirement. Financial independence yes, but the idea that you work hard for X number of years and then get put out to pasture was not only not around, it was widely protested when it was first introduced in the last century. + +Retirement was a political solution to a perceived economic problem. Depending on which economic historian you want to trust it started in either Germany or more saliently for myself, the U.S. In the case of the latter the idea of retirement cam about because of the high unemployment. During the Great Depression unemployment was looking like a long term systemic problem, or at least people of that day began to see it that way. So the instituted the idea of mandatory retirement at 65. This eliminates a significant portion of the work force which not only means there are more jobs for younger works but also changes the denominator so to speak which then means unemployment comes down because everyone over 65 is no longer unemployed, they're "retired". This decision was met with widespread protests. Turns out people don't like to be put out to pasture. It's not until the 1950s, that heyday of Don Draper and his ilk that the idea of retirement as ":your golden years" becomes a sales pitch and Americans embrace the notion that playing golf is somehow not, quite literally being put out to pasture. + +So to those who say the perpetually traveling are not *really* (really, really) retired it is perhaps best to just smile and agree. If someone wants to embrace the notion of their own obsolesce and pasturing who am I to argue? + +This is similar to, parallel even in the sense that the government is trying to effectively get rid of a group of people it no longer wants to do with, to the birth of the elementary school system which was at least as much, perhaps more about reigning in perceived "juvenile delinquency:" than about education. The legacy of the system bears that out, particularly on the low income side of the equation. + +Pat Sheult's investing advice: + +- Start small + - open an account with low/no fees + - learn the interface + - make a few trades + - buy companies you know and like + - stuff you use + - places you eat + - etc + -trade 10-20 stocks you know diff --git a/np plot.txt b/np plot.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..0022545 --- /dev/null +++ b/np plot.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +np plot + +Story about a defense researcher who goes out to find pows and missing soldiers and account for them.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/of other spaces heterotopias foucault.txt b/of other spaces heterotopias foucault.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..b1db998 --- /dev/null +++ b/of other spaces heterotopias foucault.txt @@ -0,0 +1,63 @@ +title: Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias +date: 20141013 22:31:59 +tags: #writing + +--- + +The great obsession of the nineteenth century was, as we know, history: with its themes of development and of suspension, of crisis, and cycle, themes of the ever-accumulating past, with its great preponderance of dead men and the menacing glaciation of the world. The nineteenth century found its essential mythological resources in the second principle of thermaldynamics- The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space. We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed. We are at a moment. I believe, when our experience of the world is less that of a long life developing through time than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein. One could perhaps say that certain ideological conflicts animating present-day polemics oppose the pious descendents of time and the determined inhabitants of space. Structuralism, or at least which is grouped under this slightly too general name, is the effort to establish, between elements that could have been connected on a temporal axis, an ensemble of relations that makes them appear as juxtaposed, set off against one another, implicated by each other-that makes them appear, in short, as a sort of configuration. Actually, structuralism does not entail denial of time; it does involve a certain manner of dealing with what we call time and what we call history. + +Yet it is necessary to notice that the space which today appears to form the horizon of our concerns, our theory, our systems, is not an innovation; space itself has a history in Western experience, and it is not possible to disregard the fatal intersection of time with space. One could say, by way of retracing this history of space very roughly, that in the Middle Ages there was a hierarchic ensemble of places: sacred places and profane plates: protected places and open, exposed places: urban places and rural places (all these concern the real life of men). In cosmological theory, there were the supercelestial places as opposed to the celestial, and the celestial place was in its turn opposed to the terrestrial place. There were places where things had been put because they had been violently displaced, and then on the contrary places where things found their natural ground and stability. It was this complete hierarchy, this opposition, this intersection of places that constituted what could very roughly be called medieval space: the space of emplacement. + +This space of emplacement was opened up by Galileo. For the real scandal of Galileo's work lay not so much in his discovery, or rediscovery, that the earth revolved around the sun, but in his constitution of an infinite, and infinitely open space. In such a space the place of the Middle Ages turned out to be dissolved. as it were; a thing's place was no longer anything but a point in its movement, just as the stability of a thing was only its movement indefinitely slowed down. In other words, starting with Galileo and the seventeenth century, extension was substituted for localization. + +Today the site has been substituted for extension which itself had replaced emplacement. The site is defined by relations of proximity between points or elements; formally, we can describe these relations as series, trees, or grids. Moreover, the importance of the site as a problem in contemporary technical work is well known: the storage of data or of the intermediate results of a calculation in the memory of a machine, the circulation of discrete elements with a random output (automobile traffic is a simple case, or indeed the sounds on a telephone line); the identification of marked or coded elements inside a set that may be randomly distributed, or may be arranged according to single or to multiple classifications. + +In a still more concrete manner, the problem of siting or placement arises for mankind in terms of demography. This problem of the human site or living space is not simply that of knowing whether there will be enough space for men in the world -a problem that is certainly quite important - but also that of knowing what relations of propinquity, what type of storage, circulation, marking, and classification of human elements should be adopted in a given situation in order to achieve a given end. Our epoch is one in which space takes for us the form of relations among sites. + +In any case I believe that the anxiety of our era has to do fundamentally with space, no doubt a great deal more than with time. Time probably appears to us only as one of the various distributive operations that are possible for the elements that are spread out in space, + +Now, despite all the techniques for appropriating space, despite the whole network of knowledge that enables us to delimit or to formalize it, contemporary space is perhaps still not entirely desanctified (apparently unlike time, it would seem, which was detached from the sacred in the nineteenth century). To be sure a certain theoretical desanctification of space (the one signaled by Galileo's work) has occurred, but we may still not have reached the point of a practical desanctification of space. And perhaps our life is still governed by a certain number of oppositions that remain inviolable, that our institutions and practices have not yet dared to break down. These are oppositions that we regard as simple givens: for example between private space and public space, between family space and social space, between cultural space and useful space, between the space of leisure and that of work. All these are still nurtured by the hidden presence of the sacred. + +Bachelard's monumental work and the descriptions of phenomenologists have taught us that we do not live in a homogeneous and empty space, but on the contrary in a space thoroughly imbued with quantities and perhaps thoroughly fantasmatic as well. The space of our primary perception, the space of our dreams and that of our passions hold within themselves qualities that seem intrinsic: there is a light, ethereal, transparent space, or again a dark, rough, encumbered space; a space from above, of summits, or on the contrary a space from below of mud; or again a space that can be flowing like sparkling water, or space that is fixed, congealed, like stone or crystal. Yet these analyses, while fundamental for reflection in our time, primarily concern internal space. I should like to speak now of external space. + +The space in which we live, which draws us out of ourselves, in which the erosion of our lives. our time and our history occurs, the space that claws and gnaws at us, is also, in itself, a heterogeneous space. In other words, we do not live in a kind of void, inside of which we could place individuals and things. We do not live inside a void that could be colored with diverse shades of light, we live inside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one another and absolutely not superimposable on one another. + +Of course one might attempt to describe these different sites by looking for the set of relations by which a given site can be defined. For example, describing the set of relations that define the sites of transportation, streets, trains (a train is an extraordinary bundle of relations because it is something through which one goes, it is also something by means of which one can go from one point to another, and then it is also something that goes by). One could describe, via the cluster of relations that allows them to be defined, the sites of temporary relaxation -cafes, cinemas, beaches. Likewise one could describe, via its network of relations, the closed or semi-closed sites of rest - the house, the bedroom, the bed, el cetera. But among all these sites, I am interested in certain ones that have the curious property of being in relation with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralize, or invert the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect. These spaces, as it were, which are linked with all the others, which however contradict all the other sites, are of two main types. + +HETEROTOPIAS + +First there are the utopias. Utopias are sites with no real place. They are sites that have a general relation of direct or inverted analogy with the real space of Society. They present society itself in a perfected form, or else society turned upside down, but in any case these utopias are fundamentally unreal spaces. + +There are also, probably in every culture, in every civilization, real places - places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society - which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. Because these places are absolutely different from all the sites that they reflect and speak about, I shall call them, by way of contrast to utopias, heterotopias. I believe that between utopias and these quite other sites, these heterotopias, there might be a sort of mixed, joint experience, which would be the mirror. The mirror is, after all, a utopia, since it is a placeless place. In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface; I am over there, there where I am not, a sort of shadow that gives my own visibility to myself, that enables me to see myself there where I am absent: such is the utopia of the mirror. But it is also a heterotopia in so far as the mirror does exist in reality, where it exerts a sort of counteraction on the position that I occupy. From the standpoint of the mirror I discover my absence from the place where I am since I see myself over there. Starting from this gaze that is, as it were, directed toward me, from the ground of this virtual space that is on the other side of the glass, I come back toward myself; I begin again to direct my eyes toward myself and to reconstitute myself there where I am. The mirror functions as a heterotopia in this respect: it makes this place that I occupy at the moment when I look at myself in the glass at once absolutely real, connected with all the space that surrounds it, and absolutely unreal, since in order to be perceived it has to pass through this virtual point which is over there. + +As for the heterotopias as such, how can they be described? What meaning do they have? We might imagine a sort of systematic description - I do not say a science because the term is too galvanized now -that would, in a given society, take as its object the study, analysis, description, and 'reading' (as some like to say nowadays) of these different spaces, of these other places. As a sort of simultaneously mythic and real contestation of the space in which we live, this description could be called heterotopology. + +Its first principle is that there is probably not a single culture in the world that fails to constitute heterotopias. That is a constant of every human group. But the heterotopias obviously take quite varied forms, and perhaps no one absolutely universal form of heterotopia would be found. We can however class them in two main categories. + +In the so-called primitive societies, there is a certain form of heterotopia that I would call crisis heterotopias, i.e., there are privileged or sacred or forbidden places, reserved for individuals who are, in relation to society and to the human environment in which they live, in a state of crisis: adolescents, menstruating women, pregnant women. the elderly, etc. In out society, these crisis heterotopias are persistently disappearing, though a few remnants can still be found. For example, the boarding school, in its nineteenth-century form, or military service for young men, have certainly played such a role, as the first manifestations of sexual virility were in fact supposed to take place "elsewhere" than at home. For girls, there was, until the middle of the twentieth century, a tradition called the "honeymoon trip" which was an ancestral theme. The young woman's deflowering could take place "nowhere" and, at the moment of its occurrence the train or honeymoon hotel was indeed the place of this nowhere, this heterotopia without geographical markers. + +But these heterotopias of crisis are disappearing today and are being replaced, I believe, by what we might call heterotopias of deviation: those in which individuals whose behavior is deviant in relation to the required mean or norm are placed. Cases of this are rest homes and psychiatric hospitals, and of course prisons, and one should perhaps add retirement homes that are, as it were, on the borderline between the heterotopia of crisis and the heterotopia of deviation since, after all, old age is a crisis, but is also a deviation since in our society where leisure is the rule, idleness is a sort of deviation. + +The second principle of this description of heterotopias is that a society, as its history unfolds, can make an existing heterotopia function in a very different fashion; for each heterotopia has a precise and determined function within a society and the same heterotopia can, according to the synchrony of the culture in which it occurs, have one function or another. + +As an example I shall take the strange heterotopia of the cemetery. The cemetery is certainly a place unlike ordinary cultural spaces. It is a space that is however connected with all the sites of the city, state or society or village, etc., since each individual, each family has relatives in the cemetery. In western culture the cemetery has practically always existed. But it has undergone important changes. Until the end of the eighteenth century, the cemetery was placed at the heart of the city, next to the church. In it there was a hierarchy of possible tombs. There was the charnel house in which bodies lost the last traces of individuality, there were a few individual tombs and then there were the tombs inside the church. These latter tombs were themselves of two types, either simply tombstones with an inscription, or mausoleums with statues. This cemetery housed inside the sacred space of the church has taken on a quite different cast in modern civilizations, and curiously, it is in a time when civilization has become 'atheistic,' as one says very crudely, that western culture has established what is termed the cult of the dead. + +Basically it was quite natural that, in a time of real belief in the resurrection of bodies and the immortality of the soul, overriding importance was not accorded to the body's remains. On the contrary, from the moment when people are no longer sure that they have a soul or that the body will regain life, it is perhaps necessary to give much more attention to the dead body, which is ultimately the only trace of our existence in the world and in language. In any case, it is from the beginning of the nineteenth century that everyone has a right to her or his own little box for her or his own little personal decay, but on the other hand, it is only from that start of the nineteenth century that cemeteries began to be located at the outside border of cities. In correlation with the individualization of death and the bourgeois appropriation of the cemetery, there arises an obsession with death as an 'illness.' The dead, it is supposed, bring illnesses to the living, and it is the presence and proximity of the dead right beside the houses, next to the church, almost in the middle of the street, it is this proximity that propagates death itself. This major theme of illness spread by the contagion in the cemeteries persisted until the end of the eighteenth century, until, during the nineteenth century, the shift of cemeteries toward the suburbs was initiated. The cemeteries then came to constitute, no longer the sacred and immortal heart of the city, but the other city, where each family possesses its dark resting place. + +Third principle. The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible. Thus it is that the theater brings onto the rectangle of the stage, one after the other, a whole series of places that are foreign to one another; thus it is that the cinema is a very odd rectangular room, at the end of which, on a two-dimensional screen, one sees the projection of a three-dimensional space, but perhaps the oldest example of these heterotopias that take the form of contradictory sites is the garden. We must not forget that in the Orient the garden, an astonishing creation that is now a thousand years old, had very deep and seemingly superimposed meanings. The traditional garden of the Persians was a sacred space that was supposed to bring together inside its rectangle four parts representing the four parts of the world, with a space still more sacred than the others that were like an umbilicus, the navel of the world at its center (the basin and water fountain were there); and all the vegetation of the garden was supposed to come together in this space, in this sort of microcosm. As for carpets, they were originally reproductions of gardens (the garden is a rug onto which the whole world comes to enact its symbolic perfection, and the rug is a sort of garden that can move across space). The garden is the smallest parcel of the world and then it is the totality of the world. The garden has been a sort of happy, universalizing heterotopia since the beginnings of antiquity (our modern zoological gardens spring from that source). + +Fourth principle. Heterotopias are most often linked to slices in time - which is to say that they open onto what might be termed, for the sake of symmetry, heterochronies. The heterotopia begins to function at full capacity when men arrive at a sort of absolute break with their traditional time. This situation shows us that the cemetery is indeed a highly heterotopic place since, for the individual, the cemetery begins with this strange heterochrony, the loss of life, and with this quasi-eternity in which her permanent lot is dissolution and disappearance. + +From a general standpoint, in a society like ours heterotopias and heterochronies are structured and distributed in a relatively complex fashion. First of all, there are heterotopias of indefinitely accumulating time, for example museums and libraries, Museums and libraries have become heterotopias in which time never stops building up and topping its own summit, whereas in the seventeenth century, even at the end of the century, museums and libraries were the expression of an individual choice. By contrast, the idea of accumulating everything, of establishing a sort of general archive, the will to enclose in one place all times, all epochs, all forms, all tastes, the idea of constituting a place of all times that is itself outside of time and inaccessible to its ravages, the project of organizing in this way a sort of perpetual and indefinite accumulation of time in an immobile place, this whole idea belongs to our modernity. The museum and the library are heterotopias that are proper to western culture of the nineteenth century. + +Opposite these heterotopias that are linked to the accumulation of time, there are those linked, on the contrary, to time in its most flowing, transitory, precarious aspect, to time in the mode of the festival. These heterotopias are not oriented toward the eternal, they are rather absolutely temporal [chroniques]. Such, for example, are the fairgrounds, these' marvelous empty sites on the outskirts of cities that teem once or twice a year with stands, displays, heteroclite objects, wrestlers, snakewomen, fortune-tellers, and so forth. Quite recently, a new kind of temporal heterotopia has been invented: vacation villages, such as those Polynesian villages that offer a compact three weeks of primitive and eternal nudity to the inhabitants of the cities. You see, moreover, that through the two forms of heterotopias that come together here, the heterotopia of the festival and that of the eternity of accumulating time, the huts of Djerba are in a sense relatives of libraries and museums. for the rediscovery of Polynesian life abolishes time; yet the experience is just as much the,, rediscovery of time, it is as if the entire history of humanity reaching back to its origin were accessible in a sort of immediate knowledge, + +Fifth principle. Heterotopias always presuppose a system of opening and closing that both isolates them and makes them penetrable. In general, the heterotopic site is not freely accessible like a public place. Either the entry is compulsory, as in the case of entering a barracks or a prison, or else the individual has to submit to rites and purifications. To get in one must have a certain permission and make certain gestures. Moreover, there are even heterotopias that are entirely consecrated to these activities of purification -purification that is partly religious and partly hygienic, such as the hammin of the Moslems, or else purification that appears to be purely hygienic, as in Scandinavian saunas. + +There are others, on the contrary, that seem to be pure and simple openings, but that generally hide curious exclusions. Everyone can enter into thew heterotopic sites, but in fact that is only an illusion- we think we enter where we are, by the very fact that we enter, excluded. I am thinking for example, of the famous bedrooms that existed on the great farms of Brazil and elsewhere in South America. The entry door did not lead into the central room where the family lived, and every individual or traveler who came by had the right to ope this door, to enter into the bedroom and to sleep there for a night. Now these bedrooms were such that the individual who went into them never had access to the family's quarter the visitor was absolutely the guest in transit, was not really the invited guest. This type of heterotopia, which has practically disappeared from our civilizations, could perhaps be found in the famous American motel rooms where a man goes with his car and his mistress and where illicit sex is both absolutely sheltered and absolutely hidden, kept isolated without however being allowed out in the open. + +Sixth principle. The last trait of heterotopias is that they have a function in relation to all the space that remains. This function unfolds between two extreme poles. Either their role is to create a space of illusion that exposes every real space, all the sites inside of which human life is partitioned, as still more illusory (perhaps that is the role that was played by those famous brothels of which we are now deprived). Or else, on the contrary, their role is to create a space that is other, another real space, as perfect, as meticulous, as well arranged as ours is messy, ill constructed, and jumbled. This latter type would be the heterotopia, not of illusion, but of compensation, and I wonder if certain colonies have not functioned somewhat in this manner. In certain cases, they have played, on the level of the general organization of terrestrial space, the role of heterotopias. I am thinking, for example, of the first wave of colonization in the seventeenth century, of the Puritan societies that the English had founded in America and that were absolutely perfect other places. I am also thinking of those extraordinary Jesuit colonies that were founded in South America: marvelous, absolutely regulated colonies in which human perfection was effectively achieved. The Jesuits of Paraguay established colonies in which existence was regulated at every turn. The village was laid out according to a rigorous plan around a rectangular place at the foot of which was the church; on one side, there was the school; on the other, the cemetery-, and then, in front of the church, an avenue set out that another crossed at fight angles; each family had its little cabin along these two axes and thus the sign of Christ was exactly reproduced. Christianity marked the space and geography of the American world with its fundamental sign. + +The daily life of individuals was regulated, not by the whistle, but by the bell. Everyone was awakened at the same time, everyone began work at the same time; meals were at noon and five o'clock-, then came bedtime, and at midnight came what was called the marital wake-up, that is, at the chime of the churchbell, each person carried out her/his duty. + +Brothels and colonies are two extreme types of heterotopia, and if we think, after all, that the boat is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea and that, from port to port, from tack to tack, from brothel to brothel, it goes as far as the colonies in search of the most precious treasures they conceal in their gardens, you will understand why the boat has not only been for our civilization, from the sixteenth century until the present, the great instrument of economic development (I have not been speaking of that today), but has been simultaneously the greatest reserve of the imagination. The ship is the heterotopia par excellence. In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates. diff --git a/paris notes.txt b/paris notes.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..8da05e0 --- /dev/null +++ b/paris notes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +Paris Notes + +Paris details + +Suburbs - ????(can't read) driving to the airport -- red and white smokestacks, cell phone relay towers, antenas and then finally the return to the ritzy hotelsand communications centers that ring every western airport surrounding the airport and + +The bus was passing through Pont Nuef sores more ordinary, filled with men selling cellphones, perfumes, fromageries, boulangeries, magazine stands with decrepit old french movie stars their arms wrapped greedily around your starlets with bright eyes and come hither smiles, and two delivery men heaving brown boxes out the back door of a truck... green grocers with prunes, tabacs with spinning lotto signs and endless turkish blend tobacco or the coal black gauloise that the french love so much. It was the fall of the riots and from the expressway the burned out hulks of cars were a somber charred gray against the black and white graffiti walls interspersed between them at intervals that seems to stutter like ling ignored dreams, a glimpse of maples and poplars, a few stubborn brown leaves still clinging to each. As we moved out the of the 18th arrondissement and into the suburbs proper the grayish stone of Paris gave way to more modern stucco buildings and overpasses, billboard ads for bad french action films les dues cavilers. diff --git a/parmigianino.txt b/parmigianino.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..1c9e35c --- /dev/null +++ b/parmigianino.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +Parmigianino + +Bogenschnitzender Amor + +https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:Parmigianino_014.jpg + +God of love carving a bow atop dusty books as if to suggest that the world of knowledge is always trumped by the world of love.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/photographs and balance.txt b/photographs and balance.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..c2cb9b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/photographs and balance.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +photographs and balance + +It is a tricky balance: as always, photographs, especially when so readily viewed at the very places they were taken, hold the potential to substitute for rather than deepen our own awareness. + +http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/gps-and-the-end-of-the-road
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/place and time.txt b/place and time.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..9dbbb1d --- /dev/null +++ b/place and time.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +place and time + +tags: travel, place +date: August 08, 2013 07:22:12 PM +--- + +Places beckon us to experience them, and ourselves as through them. But one wonders whether our lives are not now headed towards being carried out on some other plane of existence: today, as a marketing analyst notes in the trade journal Advertising Age, young consumers are interested in digital technology that “allows [them] to transcend time and place.” + +It is this aspiration that we find frustrated when we speak today of feeling “disconnected”: we mean we are disconnected not from the place where we are standing, but from that realm of virtual transcendence, that place that is no place. Hence we want access to it wherever we go — we demand (and increasingly get) wireless connectivity even in places far and wild, at campgrounds and national parks and remote destinations. And yet at the same time we strangely speak of the thrill of “disconnecting for a while” — as if disconnecting is required for reconnecting. + +If feeling “connected” for us means inhabiting the virtual realm, then what we most long to connect to is not what is in front of our eyes. When we speak of feeling “disconnected,” then, we are confessing that we have become displaced: we are losing interest in and forgetting how to inhabit real places on their own. This displacement produces restlessness — but of a very different sort than the restlessness that motivates the traveler to go forward into the world. In fact, this restlessness is opposed to the traveler’s impulse: it seeks its relief not in the real world but the virtual. It is not like what Percy’s traveler to Chicago feels — for his anxiety is of the place, over who he might be there, whether he might emerge from it changed, and the risks of what that newness might mean. Rather, our anxiety is based in having disengaged from this realm of possibilities, but finding ourselves nonetheless left with the task of figuring out how to be in the world. + +http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/gps-and-the-end-of-the-road
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/places and movement.txt b/places and movement.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..4bdace7 --- /dev/null +++ b/places and movement.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +places and movement + +The demand that a place first makes of us is to be able to move in it as our bodily selves. The tourist at the Grand Canyon has a far better chance of “seeing” the canyon if he goes for a hike in it than if he stands gazing at the rim, mightily attempting to behold it (even though he can, in a literal sense, see more of it from the rim). This motion need not be directly a matter of the body; any machine that a person enters and controls as a vehicle of his own powers will do: whether he drives an airplane, a car, or a wheelchair, some relationship between agent and place is formed. As the aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry discovered, each machine functions as a different sort of body that permits an encounter with different aspects and scales of a place. + +Central to the demand to move in a place is the demand to find one’s way through it. It is the most basic requirement for gaining access to a place — physical access to its features, but also access to those features as experientially meaningful. It is one of the results of learning to “internalize” a map or a set of directions through a place: the qualities of the place itself become “internalized,” taking on new meaning for the traveler. In internalizing bird’s-eye directions, one gets the lay of the land, the depth and configuration of space, that helps tie together the disparate components of a place into a whole; in internalizing landmark-based directions, the sites and features of a place gain significance. It is a crucial part of our first real entry into the revelation of place — a revelation that must be worked for, achieved in stages and through struggles; that can never be simply told or taught. + +Through this struggle, place gains an experiential shape. The features of a particular place begin not just to look different from the features of another place, but to feel different and mean something different. Go to a city and find your way to somewhere new; take a walk or a drive through the streets of Washington, D.C., and you will begin to feel how it is a different place from Austin or San Francisco or Paris or New Orleans — how your possibilities for action are different and so too your possibilities for being. Finding your way around is how you begin to escape the realm of mere location and sight, wresting from it place and that elusive sense of the place. + +http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/gps-and-the-end-of-the-road
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/proust.txt b/proust.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..2877884 --- /dev/null +++ b/proust.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +Proust + +"...what brings people together is not shared opinion but a latent propensity of mind" + +In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/psql notes.txt b/psql notes.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..28ef2df --- /dev/null +++ b/psql notes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +psql notes + +Backup: + + $ pg_dump -U {user-name} {source_db} -f {dumpfilename.sql} + +Restore: + + $ psql -U {user-name} -d {desintation_db}-f {dumpfilename.sql} + +Postgres 8.4/geodjango setup on centos: + +<http://invisibleroads.com/tutorials/postgresql-postgis-install.html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/quotes mediation.txt b/quotes mediation.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..6ec019d --- /dev/null +++ b/quotes mediation.txt @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ +quotes-mediation + +Consider your essence as light rays arising from center to center up the vertebrae, and so rises livingness in you. + +Consider any area of your present form as limitlessly spacious. + +Suppose your passive form to be an empty room with walls of skin -- empty. + +When in worldly activity, keep attentive between the two breaths, and so practicing, in a few days be born anew. + +Focus on fire rising through your form from the toes up until the body burns to ashes but not you. + +Meditate on the make-believe world as burning to ashes, and become being above human. + +Within tangible breath in the center of forehead, as this reaches heart at the moment of sleep, have direction over dreams and over death itself. + +As, subjectively, letters flow into words and words into sentences, and as, objectively, circles flow into worlds and worlds into principles, find it last these converging in are being. + +Sweet-hearted one, meditate on knowing and not knowing, existing and not existing. Then leave both aside that you may be. + +At the point of sleep when sleep is not yet come and eternal wakefulness vanishes, at this point being is revealed. + +Without support for feet or hands sit only on buttocks. Suddenly, the centering. + +Just as you have the impulse to do something, stop. + +Feel yourself as pervading all directions, far, near. + +When on a bed or a seat, let yourself become weightless, beyond mind + +When some desire comes, consider it. Then, suddenly, quit it. + +This so-called universe appears as a juggling, a picture show. To be happy look upon it so. + +Feel the consciousness of each person as your own consciousness. So, leaving aside concern for self, become each being. + +Roam about until exhausted and then, dropping to the ground, in this dropping be whole. + +Wherever your mind is wandering, internally or externally, at this very place, this. + +At the start of sneezing, during right, in anxiety, about the chasm, flying in battle, extreme curiosity, at the beginning of hunger, + + + diff --git a/quotes.txt b/quotes.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..82b6ee3 --- /dev/null +++ b/quotes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +quotes + +"By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects" - from a 1967 essay written by the historian Lynn Townsend White Jr + +"the world is your bedroom, as it has been since the dawn of time." http://tomallen.info/how-my-location-independent-lifestyle-works/ + +“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” –William Arthur Ward + +As the philosopher Colin McGinn has emphasized, your very inability to imagine a solution might reflect your cognitive limitations as an evolved creature. The point is that we have no reason to believe that we, as organisms whose brains are evolved and finite, can fathom the answer to every question that we can ask. All other species have cognitive limitations, why not us? So even if matter does give rise to mind, we might not be able to understand how. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/02/07/awaiting-new-darwin/?pagination=false + +people have been talking to gods and demons for far more of human history than they have not. - Terrance McKenna http://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/mckenna_terence/mckenna_terence_tryptamines_consciousness.shtml + +Because if you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs. https://medium.com/what-i-learned-building/1b7dfe34fced + + +In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates. -- Michel Foucault, Of Other Spaces, 1967 + +“It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.” -Steve Jobs (quoted in Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, 1987) + +The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate. -- O. Henry + +"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." T. Roosevelt + +“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” -- David Foster Wallace + +"The paradox vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will some only when they make their tormentors suffer." -Unbroken (book) + +Everything is supposed to be bigger and better online. But what I think people have lost sight of — and I don't think the internet has done a good job of self-evaluation in this respect — is the massive shift between the brave new internet world of the late '90s and now. Its early philosophy seemed to be one where everyone was an individual whose opinions were respected. A decade later, everything is corporate-owned, advertising is incessant, and the diverse opinions of internet commentary are often shouted down. Now there's much more online groupthink. - DJ Shadow, Wired: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/09/dj-shadow/all/1 + +"The wilderness should be preserved for political reasons. We may need it someday not only as a refuge from excessive industrialism, but also as a refuge from authoritarian government, political oppression" -- Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire + +I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity, and am more invulnerable than Achilles; fortune have not one place to hit me - Sir Thomas Browne Religio Medici + + diff --git a/ralph borsodi - wikipedia.txt b/ralph borsodi - wikipedia.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..e47f76d --- /dev/null +++ b/ralph borsodi - wikipedia.txt @@ -0,0 +1,130 @@ +[Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Borsodi "Permalink to Ralph Borsodi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia") + +# Ralph Borsodi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia + +Ralph Borsodi (1886 – October 26, 1977[[1]][1]) was an [agrarian][2] theorist and practical experimenter interested in ways of living useful to the modern family desiring greater self-reliance (especially so during the [Great Depression][3]). Much of his theory related to living in rural surroundings on a modern [homestead][4]. + +## Life and work[[edit][5]] + +Born in New York City, he spent the earliest years of his life in Manhattan. His father was a publisher who had connections in the advertising field, and Ralph worked in this business as a boy. By the age of 22, Borsodi was personally testing the idea of moving "[back to the land][6]."[[2]][7] He had fully embraced the concept of [simple living][8] by 1920. Borsodi was influenced by the reformer [Bolton Hall][9] (1854–1938), a friend of his father's; Hall introduced Borsodi to the ideas of the economist [Henry George][10].[[3]][11] Borsodi was also influenced by [Thomas Jefferson][12], [Arthur Schopenhauer][13], [Friedrich Nietzsche][14],[[4]][15][Josiah Warren][16], [Lysander Spooner][17], [Benjamin Tucker][18], and [Laurance Labadie][19].[[5]][20] + +Borsodi is chiefly known for his practical experiments in self-sufficient living during the 1920s and 1930s, and for the books he wrote about these experiments. The Distribution Age (1927), This Ugly Civilization (1929), and Flight from the City (1933) are his best known works.[[6]][21] He established a [School of Living][22] in [Rockland County, New York][23] during the winter of 1934–1935. Before long about 20 families began attending regularly from [New York City][24], spending the weekends at the school. Some commentators claim Borsodi's books inspired "hundreds of thousands of people" to follow his example during the Great Depression. In 1948 Borsodi self-published, even doing his own typesetting, Education and Living a two-volume work designed to suggest a curriculum for the ongoing School of Living. In 1950, Borsodi moved to the Town of [Melbourne Village][25], whose founders had been influenced by his teachings. Mildred Loomis, his most devoted student, continued the work of the School of Living into the 1970s when it was headquartered at [Heathcote Community][26] in [Freeland, Maryland][27]. + +With Bob Swann, Borsodi created a [land trust][28] that functioned as an economic, [banking][29], and [credit][30] institution, probably influenced by the ideas of [Josiah Warren][16].[[5]][20] Called the Independence Foundation, Inc., Borsodi intended it as a new and ethical way of making low-cost, cooperatively shared credit available to people who wanted to build homesteads in the community. This institution made it possible to provide people access to land without their having to pay outright for property in the beginning. + +Borsodi spent decades analyzing the ills of modern society and imagining remedies for the problems. His 1968 work, published in India, and titled Seventeen Universal Problems of Man and Society, catalogued his research and can be considered the beginning of a modern taxonomy of human problems and solutions. His followers felt he usually was working at solving problems at least 20 years before most analysts realized the problem existed. For example, it is said he predicted the [inflation][31] of the 1970s some thirty years before it came. One of his interests was in local [currencies][32], and he started an experiment with such a currency in his home area, [Exeter, New Hampshire][33]; however, the project came to an early end with Borsodi's failing health. He created a commodity-backed bartering currency called the Constant, reminiscent of [Josiah Warren][16]'s "labor notes" at the [Cincinnati Time Store][34]. These appeared first as paper notes, but in 1974, coin-like pieces, called Globes, were minted and sold in 1/2 ounce and 1 ounce .999 silver denominations. The non-profit organization that sponsored them was the International Foundation for Independence, Inc., but the Globes were minted and sold by an organization called Arbitrage International. + +* ![][35] + +* ![][36] + +Borsodi died in Exeter, New Hampshire in October 1977, survived by his wife Clare and two sons - Edward M. and Ralph W. - by his first wife Myrtle Mae Simpson.[[7]][37] + +## Influence[[edit][38]] + +Borsodi was cited as an important modern critic and creative thinker by [Helen][39] and [Scott Nearing][40] in such writings as Living the Good Life, a book sometimes credited as being the [clarion call][41] of the [back-to-the-land movement][6] of the 1970s. J.I. Rodale, who founded Organic Gardening and Farming magazine got his introduction to organic gardening at Borsodi's Dogwood Acres Homestead, as did the Keene family, founders of Walnut Acres organic food catalog. Borsodi was also a significant influence on the American [libertarian][42] movement.[[8]][43] + +A number of Borsodi's texts can be found in the Social Criticism section of the Soil and Health Online Library. + +## Selected works[[edit][44]] + +## See also[[edit][45]] + +## References[[edit][46]] + +1. [^][47] [The New York Times][48] obituary has October 27 as his death date. Obituary, New York Times, 11 November 1977, p. 29 +2. [^][49] Gould, Rebecca Kneale. At Home In Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America, University of California Press, 2005, p. 8 +3. [^][50] Miller, Timothy. The Quest for Utopia in Twentieth-Century America: 1900-1960, Syracuse University Press, 1998, p. 128 +4. [^][51] Shi, David. The Simple Life, University of Georgia Press, 2001 p. 227 +5. ^ [a][52] [b][53] [James J. Martin's biography of Laurance Labadie][54] states that his colleague,Mrs. Loomis, recognized the historical continuity of the ideas dating back to [Josiah Warren][16], [Lysander Spooner][17], and [Benjamin Tucker][18]. +6. [^][55] Shi, pp. 228-9 +7. [^][56] Obituary, New York Times, 11 November 1977, p. 29 +8. [^][57] McCarthy, Daniel (2007-03-12) [Enemies of the State][58], [The American Conservative][59] + +## External links[[edit][60]] + +Available at Soil and Health Online Library: + +[Persondata][61] + +Name +Borsodi, Ralph + +Alternative names + +Short description +American economist + +Date of birth +1886 + +Place of birth + +Date of death +October 26, 1977 + +Place of death +![][62] + +[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_note-1 +[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrarianism "Agrarianism" +[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression "Great Depression" +[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_principle "Homestead principle" +[5]: /w/index.php?title=Ralph_Borsodi&action=edit§ion=1 "Edit section: Life and work" +[6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-to-the-land_movement "Back-to-the-land movement" +[7]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_note-2 +[8]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_living "Simple living" +[9]: /wiki/Bolton_Hall_(activist) "Bolton Hall (activist)" +[10]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George "Henry George" +[11]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_note-3 +[12]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson "Thomas Jefferson" +[13]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer "Arthur Schopenhauer" +[14]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche "Friedrich Nietzsche" +[15]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_note-4 +[16]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Warren "Josiah Warren" +[17]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner "Lysander Spooner" +[18]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tucker "Benjamin Tucker" +[19]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurance_Labadie "Laurance Labadie" +[20]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_note-Martin-5 +[21]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_note-6 +[22]: /w/index.php?title=School_of_Living&action=edit&redlink=1 "School of Living (page does not exist)" +[23]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockland_County%2C_New_York "Rockland County, New York" +[24]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City "New York City" +[25]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Village%2C_Florida "Melbourne Village, Florida" +[26]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathcote_Community "Heathcote Community" +[27]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeland%2C_Maryland "Freeland, Maryland" +[28]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_trust "Land trust" +[29]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking "Banking" +[30]: /wiki/Credit_(finance) "Credit (finance)" +[31]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation "Inflation" +[32]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency "Currency" +[33]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter%2C_New_Hampshire "Exeter, New Hampshire" +[34]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Time_Store "Cincinnati Time Store" +[35]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/04/Globe_reverse.jpg/120px-Globe_reverse.jpg +[36]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9d/Globe_obverse.jpg/120px-Globe_obverse.jpg +[37]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_note-7 +[38]: /w/index.php?title=Ralph_Borsodi&action=edit§ion=2 "Edit section: Influence" +[39]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Nearing "Helen Nearing" +[40]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Nearing "Scott Nearing" +[41]: /w/index.php?title=Clarion_call&action=edit&redlink=1 "Clarion call (page does not exist)" +[42]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism "Libertarianism" +[43]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_note-8 +[44]: /w/index.php?title=Ralph_Borsodi&action=edit§ion=3 "Edit section: Selected works" +[45]: /w/index.php?title=Ralph_Borsodi&action=edit§ion=4 "Edit section: See also" +[46]: /w/index.php?title=Ralph_Borsodi&action=edit§ion=5 "Edit section: References" +[47]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_ref-1 +[48]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times "The New York Times" +[49]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_ref-2 +[50]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_ref-3 +[51]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_ref-4 +[52]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_ref-Martin_5-0 +[53]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_ref-Martin_5-1 +[54]: http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/laurance.shtml +[55]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_ref-6 +[56]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_ref-7 +[57]: https://en.wikipedia.org#cite_ref-8 +[58]: http://www.amconmag.com/article/2007/mar/12/00027/ +[59]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Conservative "The American Conservative" +[60]: /w/index.php?title=Ralph_Borsodi&action=edit§ion=6 "Edit section: External links" +[61]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3APersondata "Wikipedia:Persondata" +[62]: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAutoLogin/start?type=1x1 ""
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/rethinking out of africa.txt b/rethinking out of africa.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..83f37cf --- /dev/null +++ b/rethinking out of africa.txt @@ -0,0 +1,131 @@ +Rethinking "Out of Africa" | Edge.org + +From <http://www.edge.org/conversation/rethinking-out-of-africa> + +# Rethinking “Out of Africa” + +[Christopher Stringer](http://www.edge.org/memberbio/christopher_stringer) [11.12.11] + + + +CHRISTOPHER STRINGER is one of the world's foremost paleoanthropologists. He is a founder and most powerful advocate of the leading theory concerning our evolution: Recent African Origin or "Out of Africa". He has worked at The Natural History Museum, London since 1973, is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and currently leads the large and successful Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project (AHOB), His most recent book is _The_ _Origin of Our Species _(titled _Lone Survivors_ in the US). + +**[Christopher Stringer's _Edge_ Bio Page](http://edge.org/memberbio/christopher_stringer)** + +**[CHRISTOPHER STRINGER:]** At the moment, I'm looking again at the whole question of a recent African origin for modern humans—the leading idea over the last 20 years. This argues that we had a recent African origin, that we came out of Africa, and that we replaced all of the other human forms that were outside of Africa. But we're having to re-evaluate that now because genetic data suggest that the modern humans who came out of Africa about 60,000 years ago probably interbred with Neanderthals, first of all, and then some of them later on interbred with another group of people called the Denisovans, over in south eastern Asia. + +If this is so, then we are not purely of recent African origin. We're mostly of recent African origin, but there was contact with these other so-called species. We're having to re-evaluate the Out-of-Africa theory, and we're having to re-evaluate the species concepts we apply, because in one view of thinking, species should be self-contained units. They don't interbreed with other species. However, for me, the whole idea of Neanderthals as a different species is really a recognition of their separate evolutionary history—the fact that we can show that they evolved through time in a particular direction, distinct from modern humans, and they separated maybe 400,000 years ago from our lineage. And morphologically we can distinguish a relatively complete Neanderthal fossil from any recent human. + + + +You could argue that they're an extreme variant of _Homo sapiens_, but a very different 'race' from anyone alive today, or, as I prefer to argue, they're a separate species, with a separate evolutionary history. But I've never actually said that that meant they were completely reproductively isolated from us. We know that many closely related species in primates, for example, can interbreed. Various species of monkey can interbreed and have fertile offspring, and so can our closest living relatives, Bonobos and common chimpanzees. + +In my view the Neanderthals were closely related and probably potentially able to interbreed with modern humans, but until recently I considered that while there could have been interbreeding forty or fifty thousand years ago, it was on such a small scale that all trace of it vanished in the intervening years. But it now seems from Neanderthal genome studies that that was not so. We do have a bit of Neanderthal in us, you and I—it's a small amount, but certainly not negligible.. + +Does that mean Neanderthals are a different species or does it mean we should include them in _Homo sapiens_? Well, they are still only a small part of our makeup now, reflecting something like a 2.5% input of their DNA. Physically, however, they went extinct about 30,000 years ago. They had distinct behavior and they evolved under different conditions from us, so I still think it's useful to keep them as a separate species, even if we remember that that doesn't necessarily preclude interbreeding. + +Then there are these enigmatic people called the Denisovans, who we only know about because of DNA work that's gone on in the site of Denisova Cave in Siberia. The site has been known for a long time. There were some very fragmentary human fossils from there, a finger bone; a couple of teeth, a foot bone, and each of them have yielded significant DNA. The surprise was that while the foot bone DNA turned out to be Neanderthal, at the eastern limit of their known range, the other fossils had DNA that was quite distinct: it wasn't clearly Neanderthal, it wasn't modern human. It was something different. + +Svante Pääbo and his colleagues have dubbed these people the Denisovans. So we have this site in Siberia with Denisovans, and it looks like it was occupied in quite a short period of time by the Denisovans, by Neanderthals, and finally by modern humans. It's a remarkable site with three different kinds of humans living there in close proximity in time and space. However, the exact dating of these different occupations is still unclear. + +Thus the Denisovans are only known from this one site, genetically. The fossils are too incomplete to tell us what these people were really like, except they've got big teeth. However, there are lots of ancient fossils from China, and one from India. We've known about the people in China for a long time, ones who didn't look Neanderthal, and didn't look modern human either. Fossils like from the ones from Dali, Jinniushan, Maba might well be Denisovans, but unfortunately we don't have DNA from them at the moment, and we have to hope that the DNA work will move on, and eventually we can unite the Denisovan DNA with more complete fossils, and say physically what these people looked like. + +A further big surprise was that not only were there distinct humans in Siberia maybe 50,000 years ago, but when whole genome scans were done against modern humans, it turned out that there was one group of living humans that seemed to be related to the Denisovans, that had Denisovan DNA in them, and these people are down in Australasia. They're in New Guinea, Australia, and some neighbouring islands, so that's also very unexpected. + +The Denisovans are only known from their DNA in Siberia. Down in New Guinea and Australia, there is Denisovan DNA in living people. The best way to explain this at the moment is that modern humans were dispersing through southern Asia towards Australia and New Guinea, and Denisovans must also have been living in that region. So they weren't just in Siberia, they were actually right across eastern Asia and down into Southeast Asia, where there was another interbreeding with people whose descendants ended up in New Guinea and Australia. So those people have got a double archaic dose, if you like: they've got a bit of Neanderthal DNA that their ancestors picked up maybe in western Asia from encounters with some Neanderthals, and then coming through southeast Asia, they picked up some Denisovan DNA, and that gets added to the mix. + +We end up with a pretty complicated story of the interweaving of these lineages, which were separate for hundreds of thousands of years, but then when they overlapped, they exchanged genes. We don't know the circumstances of the interbreeding—we don't know if these were groups that came together peacefully, or maybe some modern humans were lacking mates and decided to capture some from a neighboring group. It can't have been that common a behavior, or there would be a lot more DNA from these archaic people. And it can't even have been a common behavior with the Neanderthals, because of course, if modern humans came out of Africa and spread gradually across Europe, we would expect if there was continuing interbreeding with Neanderthals, then Europeans would actually have a lot more Neanderthal DNA than someone in China or someone in New Guinea. + +The extraordinary thing is the level of DNA is about the same in a modern European, a modern Chinese and a modern New Guinean. One possibility is that an interbreeding event happened early on in southwest Asia. As modern humans first emerged from Africa, they met some Neanderthals—maybe only 25 Neanderthals and 1,000 modern humans. That would be enough. And then that DNA gets carried with those modern humans as they spread out from that area and diversify. + +Another possibility, which Mathias Currat and Laurent Excoffier have recently argued, is that the low level of interbreeding between Neanderthals and moderns was actually due to the unsuccessful nature of most of the interbreeding events. That actually the level of interbreeding in separate events was a measure of the low viability of those interbreeding events— which is why there isn't more Neanderthal DNA in people outside of Africa. + +I'm thinking a lot about species concepts as applied to humans, about the "Out of Africa" model, and also looking back into Africa itself. I think the idea that modern humans originated in Africa is still a sound concept. Behaviorally and physically, we began our story there, but I've come around to thinking that it wasn't a simple origin. Twenty years ago, I would have argued that our species evolved in one place, maybe in East Africa or South Africa. There was a period of time in just one place where a small population of humans became modern, physically and behaviourally. Isolated and perhaps stressed by climate change, this drove a rapid and punctuational origin for our species. Now I don’t think it was that simple, either within or outside of Africa. + +We can see the focus, the center of evolution, for modern humans in Africa apparently moving around from one place to another, driven by climate changes. 110,000 years ago the Sahara was not desert, it was well-watered, with extensive lakes and rivers. And we see evidence of human occupation in the form of stone tools right across the region. At other times those populations completely vanished, and we pick up the evidence of evolving modern humans in East Africa, or down in the south instead. And we have to remember that there are large parts of Africa where we have stone tools, but no fossil record to show us who was making those tools. We've got no ancient human fossils from central Africa or West Africa, none at all. So we have to bear in mind that our picture is still limited in terms of the sites that have been excavated and the information we've got from them. + +So for me, the exact processes involved in our African origin are still unclear. We don't know exactly when it happened, we don't know exactly where it happened. We have modern human fossils from Ethiopia at 160,000 years at Herto and 195,000 years from Omo Kibish. These do look physically like a more robust version of people today, but I think we're also learning that alongside those modern-looking people were surviving forms of more archaic humans, at sites like Omo Kibish, Ngaloba, Singa and Eyasi. + +And there were further surprises from a specimen that I and collaborators published on a few months ago. It's the oldest fossil from Nigeria, from a site called Iwo Eleru. It's about 13,000 years old, and yet if you look at it, you would say from its shape that it's more than 100,000 years old. This reminds us that we have a very biased picture of African evolution, with many unknown areas, and there could be relics of human evolution hanging on not only outside of Africa in the form of the Neanderthals and the Denisovans, and over in Flores, this strange creature nicknamed the 'Hobbit'. In Africa itself, archaic humans could have lingered in parts of the continent as well. From some recent genetic analyses, there is evidence of an input of archaic DNA into some modern African populations as recently as 35,000 years ago. So even in Africa, the process was more complicated than we thought. + +In terms of modern humans, this means that in a sense some modern humans have got more archaic genes than others. That does seem to be so. So it leads us on to ask again: what is a modern human? Some of the most fascinating ongoing research topics in the next year or two will be homing in on the DNA that some of us have acquired from Neanderthals, that some people have acquired from the Denisovans, and that some African people have acquired, perhaps even from _Homo heidelbergensis. _ + +Scientists will look at that DNA and ask, is it functional? Is it actually doing something in the bodies of those people? Is it affecting brains, anatomy, physiology, and so on? That's going to be a huge focus of research for the next few years because on the one hand, looking at these genes will help to really tell us what makes a Neanderthal a Neanderthal, what makes a modern human a modern human, what makes a Denisovan a Denisovan. But it might possibly also show that, as multiregionalists have argued in the past, robust fossils in regions like Australia could be a reflection of archaic gene flow. + +We can say that the shared (specific) features of _Homo sapiens_ (e.g. globular braincase, small brows, chin) evolved first, in Africa, while most of our regional ('racial') traits were added on to that modern template through the action of natural selection, sexual selection, founder effect and drift, as modern humans spread out to the regions where they are found today. But could archaic genes be responsible for some of them, at least? + +Darwin was puzzled, of course, by the evolution of those features. If we read _The Descent of Man, _his favoured view for the evolution of many of the regional features was that they were sexually selected or, we might say, culturally selected. I think he was probably right, in some cases at least. We can see that skin colour generally has a relationship with ultraviolet light, with getting a balance between having enough UV getting into your skin to produce Vitamin D, but not too much of it that it will damage the skin or destroy folic acid. So there's a balancing act in the amount of skin pigmentation, and there's no doubt natural selection is at work on this. But even here, sexual selection in terms of mating preferences for lighter or darker skin could be playing a part. And when we look at other features such as, say, oriental eyes or the kind of hair we've got, Darwin may be have been right, and sexual selection is at work there. As populations spread out in small numbers, cultural preferences for attractiveness might have driven some of those differences. Not much DNA is involved, and some striking-looking differences between populations could have evolved quite rapidly. + +There have been some remarkable advances in the time that I've been researching human evolution, which is 40-odd years now. When I began my PhD in 1970 and went on my doctoral research trip in 1971, the technology was very primitive. Basically, I went around Europe with a suitcase full of measuring instruments: calipers, tapes, protractors. I applied these to the fossil skulls of Neanderthals and modern humans that I was studying, spending four months doing that. It took half a day to study a single skull and collect that data, all put down by hand onto a paper sheet that couldn’t be backed up. There were not even any photocopy machines around so I could have lost all of my data quite easily. There were no pocket calculators, there were no photocopy machines—it was entirely non-digital recording. + +When I got back to Bristol, I had to laboriously transcribe all of those measurements by hand onto punch cards, which were then fed into the massive mainframe computer for the whole of Bristol University. It was probably about four times the size of this room, but with less processing power than the digital watch that I'm wearing now. A day later I would come back and get the results of that particular analysis. Or if it didn't work because of some minor error in one of cards, I'd have to put them all in again, which happened often. + +Things were laboriously slow. It took me four months on that trip to gather the data. It took me another 18 months to analyze those data, to get the results for my PhD. But my conclusions were clear enough. I had cranial samples of modern humans from different regions, and they grouped with each other in cranial shape, rather than with their local predecessors. And the Neanderthals rarely fell into an intermediate position between ancient fossils and recent humans—they seemed to be heading off in their own evolutionary direction through time, rather than gradually approaching a modern cranial shape. + +Now, of course, with the advent of scanning and digital technology, a good graduate student sitting at a computer console here or in Europe or the USA could conjure up an equivalent amount of data that I gathered, in fact probably more data than I gathered, on a series of skulls in a week or two, And they could do a more thorough computational analysis of that data than I managed, in a couple of weeks more. So what effectively took me nearly four years could be accomplished by a good student now in a few weeks! + +Advances like CT technology give you access to far more, and far richer, data. I was limited to the craniometric points on skulls where I could put my measuring instruments. But with CT, you can capture the whole shape of a specimen, of course. You can look at the internal cranial morphology, the sinuses, the inner ear bones of Neanderthals, which we now know are differently shaped from our own. We only learned that through CT technology, so all of that has made a huge difference to what we can get out of our fossils. + +In one way I'm jealous of the new generation that can come in and do all of this in such a short period of time. On the other hand, by going around Europe for four months, I actually held the Neanderthal skull from Germany in my hands, and the Cro-Magnon skulls from France, and it was wonderful to have a hands-on approach to these important relics. So with only virtual access to the fossils, I think the people doing the digital stuff on their consoles are missing that special and even emotional contact with the actual fossils. + +When I began my work in 1970, it's fair to say that people who believed in evolutionary continuity between Neanderthals and modern humans dominated the field. There was Loring Brace at Michigan, who certainly influenced me in my early studies. Loring firmly believed that human evolution passed through a Neanderthal stage all over the world. Everywhere we looked in the middle Pleistocene, there were 'Neanderthaloid' people, and these were the ancestors of modern humans in each region. Thus if we had a complete fossil record, we would see a gradual transition in each region through Neanderthal-like forms to modern humans. Around 1970, that was probably the dominant view. + +Milford Wolpoff was one of Loring Brace's students and he came out of that tradition, but with collaborators he developed his own variant by going back to the views of Franz Weidenreich, the German anatomist. Weidenreich had developed a theory which is now known as Multiregional Evolution. In 1984 Milford, Alan Thorne and Wu Xinzhi published a paper that argued for multiregional evolution from fossil, archaeological and genetic data. _Homo erectus_, when it spread out around the Old World, started to evolve towards modern humans in each region. But these lines didn't diverge—they were glued together by gene flow. The populations were breeding with each other across the whole range of humans at the time, and so there was no single place where modern humans evolved. Basically modern humans evolved everywhere where ancient humans lived. Thus every fossil could potentially be placed in a lineage leading through to modern humans. And in one of the clearest distinctions from a Recent African Origin model, the establishment of regional features would often have preceded, rather than succeeded, the appearance of shared modern ones. + +However there were also people who weren't part of the framework of regional continuity. For example there was William Howells from Harvard, who I spent a lot of time with in the 1970s. Bill was someone who didn't think the Neanderthals were our ancestors, and he exerted an increasing influence on my thinking. We didn't know where modern humans had evolved, but we both felt that it wasn't from the Neanderthals. But if not the Neanderthals, where were those ancestors? Were they in the Far East? Were they in Africa? In the 1970s, we couldn't say. However I followed Bill in arguing that there was probably a single center for modern human origins, given the similarities among humans all over the world, physically and genetically. + +During the 1980s, data started to build up that the African record was significant. In terms of both morphology and archaeology, Africa wasn't the rather backward place it was often thought to be. First, modern humans and advanced tools were shown to be there as early as anywhere else in the world. Then as the data grew, it seemed that modern humans were indeed there _earlier_ than they were anywhere else. This was the beginning, in the 1980s, of what we call "Out of Africa". + +On the archeological side, Desmond Clark, was also very strong in that view. He had links with Tim White, and Desmond and Tim were people who went out in the field to find the fossils we needed to test our models. I haven't been so lucky on the excavations I've been on in places like Gibraltar, tending to find lots of archeology and fauna, but not the human fossils. But people like Desmond, Tim, Ofer Bar Yosef and Bernard Vandermeersch have invested many years in field work and were rewarded in finding those fossils. Clark Howell was another big influence on me, having written influential papers on Neanderthals during the 1950s and 1960s, and he was a pioneer of field work in many regions. He was someone who was meticulous in the anatomical details that he looked at in fossils and he taught me a lot about how to look at the morphology of fossils. And closer to home I learnt a lot from my Museum colleague Peter Andrews, who helped to sharpen my thoughts about an African origin for modern humans, co-authoring our influential 1988 paper in _Science_. + +The preceding year of 1987 was a real watershed, with the publication of the 'Mitochondrial Eve' paper in _Nature_ by Rebecca Cann, Mark Stoneking and Allan Wilson. A few of us had been advocating a recent African origin for modern humans before then, but it wasn't until '87 that this topic suddenly made the front pages of journals and newspapers. Suddenly modern human origins became very sexy, and more money became available for research and for field work on recent human evolution. + +Before that, the sexy areas for human evolution were in the much older African record. People working in the Rift Valley and in South Africa were the focus of attention and funding. But after 1987, people started to pick up on the evolution of modern humans as a significant topic, and we started to get more conferences, more fieldwork, and more public interest in our own evolution. Of course I was delighted to ride on that wave of increasing public interest in modern human origins. + +Until 2004, we thought that only modern humans had got across the Wallace line. The Wallace line was named after the zoologist Alfred Russel Wallace, who recognised significant changes in the fauna and flora in Southeast Asia as we move from places like Java across into the islands leading to New Guinea and Australia. The view was that ancient humans like _Homo erectus_ got as far as Java, but they didn't get any further—the assumption was that only modern humans with boats were able to get onto the islands leading to New Guinea and Australia. + +Then the find known as _Homo floresiensis_ was made in Liang Bua Cave on the island of Flores, and was quickly nicknamed "The Hobbit," because the _Lord of the Rings_ films were popular at that time. The excavators who described this material argued that they had found a new species of human, small-bodied at about a meter tall, with primitive features in the skeleton, and a brain the size of that of a chimpanzee. And this creature was living on the island of Flores, way over the Wallace Line, five-hundred kilometers beyond Java. Not only that, it was still around 17,000 years ago, long after the Neanderthals had died out. It was an extraordinary claim from a partial skeleton and some more fragmentary material dug up from just this one site on Flores. + +I was at the _Nature_ press conference where these findings were announced, and commentated on the discovery, which did impress me. I took this seriously as a distinct human-like species, which had somehow got to Flores and had evolved separately in isolation for a long period of time. The leading view in 2004 was that this creature represented a dwarf form of _Homo erectus_. _Homo erectus_ had somehow headed eastwards, arrived on Flores, and under the conditions of this relatively small island, the species had dwarfed down in size (a process called insular dwarfism, which happens to medium-to-large-sized mammals on islands with reduced resources, when evolution favors a reduced body size). The argument was that this was a dwarfed _Homo erectus_, explaining the smaller body and brain size. + +However, some researchers refused to accept that. They felt that this was such a bizarre find, under bizarre circumstances, and they actually favored the view that they were some kind of pathological modern human, perhaps suffering from cretinism, microcephaly or something called Laron Syndrome. These conditions can produce small brains and small bodies in modern humans, so some people have argued that these findings are not a distinct species at all. + +That view is a minority view, but it continues up to this day. However I'm not convinced by these counter-arguments. We've got now over 100 fossils from Liang Bua, not just that one skeleton—there are a number of other individuals. There's a second jaw bone, which to me looks every bit as primitive and archaic as the first jaw bone that's with the skeleton. And there are two sets of primitive-looking wrist bones. These finds were made in levels from about 17,000 right down to about 90,000 years in the cave, and there's archeology right through those levels, archaeology which in some respects resembles much older stone tools found elsewhere on the island. + +So for me, it remains a convincing distinct form of human, and one that may be even more primitive than was originally considered because recent research on the material, more detailed research, has found a number of features that seem to be more primitive than even the ones we find in _Homo erectus_. The suggestion is now that this might represent an even earlier stage of human evolution, one that's closer to _Homo habilis_ or even to _Australopithecus,_ creatures that lived two million years ago or more in Africa. Although we've got no evidence of it happening yet, the argument is that one of those more primitive forms got out of Africa more than two million years ago, somehow found its way over to southeast Asia, and survived in isolation on the island of Flores until 17,000 years ago, when it went extinct. That would be an even more extraordinary story than a _Homo erectus_ getting there and dwarfing, that you've actually got a relic of an earlier stage of human evolution that got all the way over there. + +Lots of questions arise from this very challenging find in explaining where it came from and what happened to it. Did it die out because of the impact of modern humans, which is an argument that's been used for the extinction of Neanderthals? Well, according to the excavators on Flores, there's no evidence of modern humans there 17,000 years ago. Supposedly the modern humans came later. But there is evidence of a massive volcanic eruption about 17,000 years ago, which produced very thick ash in the Liang Bua cave and elsewhere on the island. It may well be that this eruption was so enormous that it devastated the vegetation on the island and led to the extinction of the hobbit, which would be a very sad end after maybe two million years of evolution in a remote region, at the edge of the inhabited world at that time. + +Where did it come from? Well, that's also still a mystery. On the one hand, was it from _Homo erectus_? Mike Morwood has recently argued that it's more likely that the ancestors of the Hobbits came from the north, because the currents of water in that region actually run from Sulawesi southwards, down to places like Timor, and then westwards. That's the opposite direction from a transit from Java to Flores. So Morwood argues that the Hobbit's ancestors will be found further north. Remarkably, he and his colleagues have found stone tools on Flores that are a million years old, which might have been made by the ancestors of the Hobbit. Reportedy he's even found tools which are a million years old on the island of Sulawesi, and that island is also over the Wallace Line. So there may actually be many more populations related to the hobbit waiting to be found on the islands of the region. + +We've got a whole unknown history there for the hobbit, just as we've got an unknown history for the Denisovans in East Asia. + +Changing topics, I think one of the most remarkable recent finds is the material from the site of Malapa in South Africa. This is material that's been found in the last few years, and we've seen a series of papers published in _Science_ in the last few months. This is a species of _Australopithecus_ called _Australopithecus sediba_, and it's clearly related to the previously known and possibly ancestral species _Australopithecus africanus_. The Taung specimen and the 'Mrs Ples' fossil are two famous examples of _Australopithecus africanus_, a species that lived in South Africa more than two million years ago. + +It's true to say that for most experts, the South African australopithecines have been side-lined from the mainstream of human evolution. The mainstream view has been that East Africa was where the first humans evolved, with _Homo habilis_ coming out of a species like Lucy’s, _Australopithecus afarensis._ From there, in turn, the species _Homo erectus_ supposedly evolved about 1.8 million years ago. + +What’s new is that _sediba_ is close to two million years old and has many more human features than _Australopithecus africanus._ So we've got these strange fossil skeletons of _sediba _down in South Africa, on the one hand looking like _Australopithecus africanus_, but with more human features in the teeth, pelvis, legs and hands. This suggests for people like Lee Berger (the discoverer of _sediba_), that the transition to _Homo_ occurred in South Africa, not east Africa. You could then turn things around and sideline all of those east African fossil. + +I tend to the view that it will be more complex than that. We know there were australopithecines living in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi, down into South Africa about 2.5 million years ago. Then if in a number of areas we get parallel evolution in adapting to environmental change, these different species start to use tools to an increasing extent, they start to eat meat to an increasing extent, they start to travel longer distances on two legs to get their food, this could have driven parallel human-like changes in the body, the hands, the brain, even. That is maybe what we're seeing in both East Africa and South Africa. And an even more radical possibility is that hybridization events which we can now map from ancient and modern DNA were also occurring in Africa two million years ago and might have produced some of the mosaic morphologies that we observe there. So which area will eventually turn out to be the place of origin of the genus _Homo_ is still an open question, but _sediba_ reminds us that South Africa could be part of that story, and that perhaps _Australopithecus africanus_ didn't die out. Maybe it carried on evolving, and even started to evolve some human-like features. So this material is important in evolutionary terms, but also important because of the completeness of the several skeletons discovered so far. + +Published so far are two fairly complete skeletons of what are probably a boy, perhaps nine or ten when he died, and an adult female. Still unpublished are at least three more individuals, all from this one site. It looks like these individuals fell one after another into a death trap. They may have fallen into anoxic water, where there was very slow decay of the tissue, and they were mummified before they were fossilized, with even the possibility, according to Lee Berger, of soft tissue preservation. Between the bones and the sediments around them there could be layers of fossilized skin that might have preservation of skin, pores, hair and even pigments. Even more extraordinary if that's true. But just for their completeness, these are really important specimens. + +The impact of genetic work on our field is enormous, and growing. When you think back to 1997, a tiny bit of mitochondrial DNA was recovered from the original Neanderthal skeleton found in Germany. I was at the press conference with Svante Pääbo, and it was undoubtedly a pioneering achievement, and a breakthrough. But no one could have believed that ten years later, we'd be talking about most of a genome of a Neanderthal being reconstructed. So the technical and computational advances have been huge. + +The ability to recover the DNA, massive computing power, huge databases of comparative DNA samples have allowed us to map most of the genome of a Neanderthal, in fact several Neanderthals, and also recover the DNA of these enigmatic people called the Denisovans. I think wherever there are suitably cold conditions, and just as importantly, where it was predominantly cold in the past there should be good DNA preservation. So in northern Asia and Europe and in sites at high altitude outside of those areas, there should be more DNA to come from the fossils, and we will see increasing amounts from modern human fossils as well, which has been slow to come through because of the problems of contamination. We may find there are other people than the Denisovans and the Neanderthals to be recognized from their DNA in these regions— there may well be more surprises to come. For example there is evidence both from fossils and recent DNA that even Africa had an overlap of modern and archaic humans, with the possibility in a continent so large that there were other descendants of _heidelbergensis_ living there alongside _Homo sapiens_. These populations could have exchanged DNA too, evidence of which might be found in the genomes of living Africans. We will also get the first good look at functional DNA in the genomes of ancient individuals. For the first time, we can make a comparison, not just between the chimp genome and the modern human genome, but we can now add in the Neanderthal genome and the Denisovan genome. We can start to see what unites those three human genomes compared with the chimpanzees. What evolved along the modern human line to make us what we are? And then individually, what made the Neanderthals what they were? What made the Denisovans what they were? This will have an impact, of course, on our own nature, what makes a modern human a modern human. Already a number of bits of DNA have been identified that are distinct among humans, where the Neanderthals are like chimpanzees. Some of these are concerned with the brain, some are concerned with the skin and physiology, some are concerned with how the skeleton grows, and some are concerned with things like the motility of sperm. These things really are going to help us tell what makes a Neanderthal, what makes a Denisovan, and what makes a modern human. Equally we will see studies of the function of Neanderthal-derived and Denisovan-derived DNA in the modern populations that show this from previous interbreeding. So we will find out whether we picked up short or longer-term advantages from those interbreeding events in terms of local adaptation, resistance to new pathogens etc. + +Here's a somewhat simple representation of my current thinking now about human evolution over the last two million years: + +We've got the lineage of the hobbit, '_Homo floresiensis' _(in quotation marks because its human status in not yet clear), perhaps diverging more than two million years ago, evolving in isolation in southeast Asia, and apparently going extinct about 17,000 years ago. + +We've got _Homo erectus_, most likely originating in Africa, giving rise to lineages which continue in the Far East in China and Java, but which eventually go extinct. In Europe, it perhaps gave rise to the species _Homo_ antecessor, "Pioneer Man," known from the site of Atapuerca in Spain. Again, going extinct. + +In the western part of the Old World, we get the development of a new species, _Homo heidelbergensis_, present in Europe, Asia and Africa. We knew _heidelbergensis_ had gone two ways, to modern humans and the Neanderthals. But we now know because of the Denisovans that actually _heidelbergensis_ went three ways—in fact the Denisovans seem to represent an off-shoot of the Neanderthal lineage. + +North of the Mediterranean, _heidelbergensis _gave rise to the Neanderthals, over in the Far East, it gave rise to the Denisovans. In Africa _heidelbergensis_ evolved into modern humans, who eventually spread from Africa about 60,000 years ago, but as I mentioned, there's evidence that _heidelbergensis_ populations carried on in Africa for a period of time. But we now know that the Neanderthals and the Denisovans did not go genetically extinct. They went physically extinct, but their genes were input into modern humans, perhaps in western Asia in the case of the Neanderthals. And then a smaller group of modern humans picked up DNA from the Denisovans in south east Asia. + +We end up with quite a complex story, with even some of this ancient DNA coming back into modern humans within Africa. So our evolutionary story is mostly, but not absolutely, a Recent African Origin. + + + +[edge.org __](http://www.edge.org/conversation/rethinking-out-of-africa) diff --git a/santa is a game people play.txt b/santa is a game people play.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..9ad18aa --- /dev/null +++ b/santa is a game people play.txt @@ -0,0 +1,56 @@ +Santa Is A Game People Play + +From <http://charliepark.org/santa/>: + +# Santa Is A Game People Play + +December 2, 2012 + +Christmas in America is troubling, for a variety of reasons. Sarah and I are trying to be extremely intentional as we raise our children, and have wanted to bring that intentionality to Christmas. + + * We don’t want them developing an overly consumer-oriented worldview. + * We don’t want them to think of their time with relatives — especially around the holidays — as, primarily, a vector for Stuff. + * We have intentionally limited the number of toys they have in the house. We’ve seen a direct link between limiting toys and increased creativity in the kids. + +Also, we weren’t comfortable with the Santa narrative. Not the in-the-moment narrative — North Pole, sleigh, chimney, tree, presents, cookies — that’s … fine, I guess. What we had an issue with was the longitudinal narrative: “We’re going to create this story that isn’t true, that we’ll tell you is The Truth. In fact, if you question us on it, we’ll double-down, and show you proofs of why Santa is Real (after all, could Dad have _really_ eaten those cookies? pffft; why else would everyone talk about him if he isn’t real?). Then, when you’re a little older, you’ll find out the _actual_ truth from your classmates at school or will otherwise figure it out, won’t want to bring it up, and so we’ll pass into a state of unacknowledged silence on the matter, where you’ll kind of pretend to be into it, but mainly because you get More Stuff, but we kind of know that you’ve figured it out, but won’t bring it up. And then maybe Santa fades into the background over time.” _That_ narrative was the one we weren’t comfortable with. + +So how do you balance the desire for a more intentional family with the standard Christmas narrative in the US? How do you deal with the mythos of Santa Claus and the presents he brings, which has become _the_ key component of most people’s Christmas story? How do you remove Santa from the equation, but keep the kids from being total weirdos on the playground? + +Here’s what we’ve done. + +### A new narrative: Santa as Game + +**From the time the girls were young, we’ve told them that “Santa Claus” is a game that everyone around the world plays together.** You _play_ the game by pretending that he’s real. You _lose_ the game if you break character and talk about him not being real. And you _definitely_ don’t talk about Santa not being real at school (mainly said so they aren’t the ones who break the news to younger kids on the playground). + +And Santa, being just a character from the game, isn’t actually involved in Christmas at our house. So the kids get the idea of what Santa represents, and they can talk about him with other kids, or teachers at school, but don’t have any expectations that he’s real, or that he’s involved in the time we spend with our family. + +We didn’t come up with this approach on our own. I’m sure it’s been around for a while. We probably read about it on MetaFilter or somewhere back when Lucy was a toddler. + +It’s worked well. + +For one thing, it’s the truth, so we don’t feel like we have to come up with elaborate ruses to tell the girls. + +For another, it gives us something where our whole family is in it together — we’ve let the girls in on the secret rules of how the game is played. (Kids _love_ being let in on Secret Knowledge.) + +And for a third thing — and I’m finding more and more as a parent that this is crucial — it appeals to the _[homo ludens][7]_ part of our nature. In fact, the five characteristics of play (taken from the just-linked [Wikipedia page][7]) are important here: + + [7]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Ludens_(book) + + 1. Play is free. + 2. Play is not “ordinary” or “real” life. + 3. Play is distinct from “ordinary” life both as to locality and duration. + 4. Play creates (and even demands) order. + 5. Play is connected with no material interest. + +That all sounds like Santa-as-Game at Christmas. But — wait a minute — what about that last one? No material interest? What about gifts? + +There’s a whole post I could write on this, but the gist of it is that we keep presents simple and intentional. And they’re all from members of the family (not Santa). + +I know there are factors that go into our being able to approach Christmas (and Santa) this way, and not every family can kill Santa. And I’m sure we’re warping our kids in our own unique ways. + +But if your kids are young enough that you haven’t set expectations around Christmas, or if you’re looking for an alternate gift-giving narrative for Santa and the Christmas season, or if you’re looking for a way to softly transition away from the “Santa is real” narrative, “Santa is a game people play” has worked really well for us. + +I’d love to hear how you handle Christmas and Santa. Shoot me a note on Twitter ([@charliepark][8]) if you want to chat about it. + + [8]: https://twitter.com/charliepark + diff --git a/scratch.txt b/scratch.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..0d14070 --- /dev/null +++ b/scratch.txt @@ -0,0 +1,188 @@ +Earlier this week I was driving to the store, lost in thoughts about how massive my debt had become over the last year when I ran a red light. I'm pretty sure I have never run a red light before and I *know* I have never run a red light without even noticing that there was a light, let alone that is was red. And this is on a street I drive down at least once a week. + +Fortunately no one was coming from the other direction and there were no consequence beyond me being totally freaked out. + +I just pulled in the parking lot and sat there for a while in my car, watching the rain on the windshield and trying to figure out how I got here. Here. Deeply in consumer debt, no steady stream of income and living paycheck to paycheck which half of the time don't show up on time, sending me deeper into as I have to use credit card to fill the gap. + +I've always been a frugal person. Or at least that's what I like to think. I managed to put together enough money to travel the world for a year once, so clearly I am capable of saving money. When I got back from that trip I discovered blogs like Get Rich Slowly, Simple Dollar and eventually the one that hit closest to my Thoreau-esque leanings, Early Retirement Extreme (since ERE is no longer active -- except as a forum -- nowadays I read Mr. Money Mustache). I started saving. Indeed when I lost my most regular client two years ago I had a $15,000 emergence fund to fall back on. I thought I was in pretty good shape. + +Yet sitting there in the parking lot, realizing I was so absorbed in worrying about debt that I had run a red light I was forced to confront something -- the ideas I have about my financial situation do not match with my *actual* financial situation. I think I've know that for some time on some level, but there's knowing and there's *accepting*. + +It's time to turn things around. So I started this blog as a kind of public accountability and perhaps as a way to help others who do not have a day job or steady paycheck, but still want to get of debt, retire early and enjoy financial independence. + + +movies: + +Kintaro Walks Japan -- amazing race guy walking across japan +Fire on the Mountain -- WWII mountaineer soldiers +Touching the Void +Man on Wire +The Devil and Daniel Johnston -- about the musician + + + +Swan Swan Hummingbird Hurrah + +Athens Georgia is the smell of stale beer and cigarette butts at 7AM on a Sunday morning. + +It's stumbling home from the 40 Watt, ears still ringing. It's the unannounced shows at the Georgia Theatre. It's the forays into the iron triangle for enhancements. It's the house parties with JB's Sausage truck parked out front. + +It's the insane location of the dartboard in the old High Hat; it's the searing pain of hot caramel on your palm. It's the taste of blood in your mouth behind the 40 Watt on your worst of nights. + +It's the coffee shops and restaurants you worked in, the classes you skipped, the Periwicks you never bought, the beds you lay in wondering, the porches you smoked on thinking, the beer you drank dreaming of elsewhere. It's all things that were and never will be again forever. + +Athens, GA for 15 years I have danced on your bars, fallen asleep in your alleys, floated down your rivers, swam in your lakes, walked under your trees. + +You are one of the last great places in Los Estados Unidos, but that is also your downfall. You are in Los Estados Unidos and I can no longer be. + + +-- + +promote book: + +beta list +sub reddits +twitter +hacker news + +-- + +"How we construct meaning is a matter of personal intentional choice." -- paraphrasing D.F.W. + +-- + +"As always, the more you know, the less you need. I think in many cases, it's easier just to accumulate more money than squeeze the last 20% out of a regular budget." - Jacob from ERE + +-- + +* How to Build Responsive Websites +* Why Being "Responsive" is more than just adapting to screen size +* How to Build Faster Websites with Progressive Enhancement +* New Workflows that Will Speed Up Your Development Times +* Handling the real-world problems like advertising and images + +-- + +Places change the more time you spend in them. People change. The minutia you start to notice colors their faces a different shade, talking to them day after day begins to change how you see them. Even the smallest interactions, ordering food at the counter, buying coffee on a quiet morning, chatting with the waiter while you order. No one looks like they did the day you met them, when you weren't really paying attention to just another person behind a counter, another waiter come to take your order, another street food vendor you walk past, another guesthouse common room you hardly bother to notice. And then you do. You strike up a conversation, you suddenly notice someone. + +Even then though, your perception is limited; your understanding is wanting. And you can only see what you understand to exist. This is why people see UFOs and why we say that a place or a person "grows on you". Most of the time it's not them growing on us, it's our understanding of them deepening. + +gwe see every day in our lives are ever-changing. It's why no matter how much time you spend with someone, no matter how long you linger in a place you can never really + +Sometimes in a good way, sometimes not. + +-- + +Gratitude binge, emailing and thanking people for things. Making my once, a key piece of software and so on. The purpose being two-fold: to express gratitude yes, but also to get over the fear of talking to people. The fear of reaching out, to push myself out of my comfort zone. + +-- + +Stay outside as much as possible. Remember when you were a kid and you'd stay out of the house as long as you could? Only come home when you heard your dad whistling and you knew it was time for dinner? That kind of enthusiasm for being outside + +-- + +Make detective gold story more scifi with AI agents that escaped from google around the same time that the pilot disappears after the third gulf war, GW3. This might be connected to the gold, as in the AI selected the pilot to find the gold and used him to hide it? but the AI would have access to online currencies so why the gold? maybe something other than gold. or maybe we just leave that, maybe it needs seed money, hard currency as opposed to bitcoin, which is otherwise the currency of choice--scene where she swaps her government issue dollars for bitcoin before the storm. Also a meditation on why government avatars always looked so cheap-- government didn't want to advertise ostentatious, it wanted to look broke because everyone expected it to be broke. In fact most citizens would have felt offended if the government wasn't broke, since the vast majority of its citizens were perpetually broke. + +The treasure is something from a future war in the Middle East, or something that makes it possible to mint new bit coins? Or some digital currency. But it is lost somewhere around Greenland. A ship with the laptop sinks or something. The shipping lanes over the North Pole are new at this point (which is future from now, past from the story's present) and so the are a string of accidents before things get sorted and reliable routes are established. CEntral character goes looking for the sunken ship? Or instead of sinking it runs aground on one of the many Canadian islands up there toward the North Pole. + +-- + +The dog smells differently when it is sleeping. + +For a long time after I got out of the hospital this singular thought occupied me. I consulted the web for an explanation but no one seemed to have noticed this phenomena previously. or if they had, they had not yet recorded it into the collective consciousness. + +part of my prescribed therapy involved walks + +-- + +Time is your raw material, money is a tool. Don't trade too much material just for some tools all without making something. + +-- + +You can assume that if content is loaded from a company's web server, they are tracking everything about the event. + +-- + +Jacob from ERE: + +So this article essentially describes a liquidity/lack of savings problem which can be fixed with more savings. (Or a government bailout for those with Washington connections.) + +A bigger risk for the middle class is hyperinflation which would eradicate those savings. In such a case it doesn't matter how much money one has (unless that money is in controlling interests). If one can't get things by spending money anymore because nobody will take it, it comes down to skills with actual value [in such an economy] such as growing food, keeping warm, fixing transportation, ... and doing so without buying anything. Few have these skills noawadays. + +I think this point is being sorely missed by most (dare I say) "middle-class" and "upper middle-class" oriented financial planners/sites/blogs/... I find it scary that so many recommend "saving more money" as the solution to ALL problems. They'll never know what hit them. + +http://forum.earlyretirementextreme.com/topic.php?id=2533&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EarlyRetirementExtremeForums+%28Early+Retirement+Extreme+Forums%29#post-34605 + +-- + +Jacob from ere: http://forum.earlyretirementextreme.com/topic.php?id=2204&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EarlyRetirementExtremeForums+%28Early+Retirement+Extreme+Forums%29#post-34359 + + +For example, educationally speaking, when talking to other people with letters after their name (e.g. PhD, PE, CPA, ...), a degree becomes a joke (Doctor? So are you a real doctor or just a phd?). When talking to people with significantly less degrees, they will be impressed: "Wow, you're a scientist!" + +It all comes down to what people value. + +I'm sad to say that most people don't really value the freedom and independence ERE brings. They'll gladly sacrifice it for "comfort" which I understand has something to do with spending lots of money on stuff they never use(*). + +(*) Someone seriously told me that she'd rather keep working if ERE meant she couldn't collect shoes. + +I only really have one example with a solution...namely that friends and family used to believe we were struggling for money (just like them, supposedly). The solution was, for one month, to post all my investment transactions and dividend postings on facebook (family is big on facebook), e.g. "Today I bought $7000 worth of ...", "Just got my quarterly check from JNJ" ... that was a post a few times per week of some dividend income. Since that month, I've heard no comments whatsoever concerning our financial well being. + +(Another way of fixing that problem is just to shoot for a million bucks, this being the social convention of what it takes.) + +In terms of status, it varies incredibly depending on who you talk to. + +Careerists value their job title (assistant vice presidential middle manager anyone?). People without money value money (as do people with a LOT of money). Teenagers are impressed by the number of concerts you've been to. Twenty-somethings are impressed by the number of countries, you've traveled to. Vigilant mothers by the number of children you have. Some sad people derive their personal worth from what their children or spouse does. Some derive it from size of their car or their residency. + +And so on. + +However, ERE will generally only be valued by people who value self-sufficiency and independence. There are not many of those. + +-- + +Another post in same thread: + +There's a very good documentary on the subject by Alain de Botton: + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKkdFSqAxV8 + +Wanting to be liked and sometimes admired for something is a very human thing and thus nothing to be ashamed of. We are a social animal after all and that's simply a part of it. + +I think looking for status is a big part of what keeps consumerism going. We have learned that we get status by owning -or at least leasing- certain things (or having a job title that implies money, which then implies that you probably have all the status objects). Be it through ubiquitous ads or simply aspirational television where everyone is a doctor and lives in a large loft, some way or another we all drank the advertisers' Kool Aid. + +I've just seen a talk by David Foster Wallace (This is water), where he at one point says that people choose to worship some deity or philosophical notion of morality or the eightfold path or whatever because these things don't consume you when you worship then. If you worship intelligence, you will always feel stupid. If you worship money, you will always feel poor. If you worship status, you will always feel inferior. If you worship beauty, you will always feel ugly. Simply because you can never get enough of whichever external object of worship you choose. I found there's a lot of wisdom in that. + +The video: + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5THXa_H_N8 + +-- + +Another children's book idea: a story about a bear that either, eats children and that makes all the other animals in the forest dislike him and he becomes lonely or he eats all the other animals and gets lonely. He goes to see a bearapist. + +-- + +Facebook has conflated friendship personness and opinion in a way that is really unwholesome. You are not your opinions and your friends are not their opinions. And that's what's wrong with it... + +-- + +Hmm, mining petroleum products out of trash dumps at the compound floating villages that sil calls home is sort of an extension of the current squatters on landfill existence of current tent camps in Latin America, credit to John Rodderick. And need to look up whether or not it's currently possible to melt plastic into petroleum... Also mining the trash from the pacific ocean -- that could be why Sil crosses over to the pacific and ends up agreeing to go all the way to India. + +-- + +The danger sisters -- twin sisters who's parent have disappeared, an accident with their time machine and they're stuck somewhere back in time, so the sisters take their own time machine and go to rescue them, adventures ensue. + +-- +A series of children's books in HTML, optimized for the iPad with page flips etc. offline stage for those at pay. + +-- + +Then the series switches to young adult stories and then tenn novels and then a regular adult novel. + +-- + +Saying that your culture is unjust and you're going to change it is like +dropping a polar bear in the desert, watching it die and then arguing the +desert was unjust. + +-- diff --git a/script mutt to plain text note.txt b/script mutt to plain text note.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..7e1a99c --- /dev/null +++ b/script mutt to plain text note.txt @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ +script- mutt to plain text note + +tags: nvalt gtd +date: January 24, 2013 19:03:28 PM +--- + + +Subject: Re: Your Mutt Scripts... + +Hi Scott, + +Thanks for your nice message, and glad you found the posts useful. +Here's the script I use, which is somewhat geared towards my +idiosyncratic "2q" system: + + + #!/bin/sh + # $HOME/Scripts/m2q + BODY=$(sed -n '/^Date/,$ p' | grep -E -i '^[^X]+' | sed -En '/^Date/,/application\// p') + TITLE="2q $1" + echo "${BODY}" | sed -En '/^Date/,/text\/html/ p' > /Users/wcm1/Dropbox/notes/"$TITLE".txt + echo "${BODY}" | sed -En '/text\/html/,$ p' | pandoc --strict -f html -t markdown >> $HOME/Dropbox/notes/"$TITLE".txt + + +It's actually a very imperfect filter. The sed command in the BODY +variable is clumsy and designed mainly to clear out gobbledy-gook from +attachments. I use the other echo commands to print both the +plain-text version of the message and the HTML version (if there is +one) parsed by pandoc to my note. +Within put, I use the | key to call the pipe message command, and then +I enter: + m2q "Title of my note" +and hit enter (the Script is called m2q and resides in my $PATH). +You should be able to see how to make an even simpler script, though. +If all you wanted to do was be able to give your note a title within +Mutt, your script could look like this: +``` +MESSAGE=$(cat) +TITLE="$1" +echo "${MESSAGE}" > path/to/notes/"$1".txt +``` +Hope this helps, +Caleb +W. Caleb McDaniel +Assistant Professor of History +Rice University +http://wcm1.web.rice.edu +On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 04:54:49PM -0500, Scott Gilbertson wrote: +> Caleb- +> +> I stumbled across your site trying to perfect my GTD-in-plain-text +> system. I like what you wrote about regarding notational velocity, it's +> very similar to what I do. +> +> What I was writing about though is your mutt post. This bit about saving +> messages as plain text files caught my eye: "I wrote up a simple script +> that takes the message, cleans it up, and puts it in a plain text file +> whose title I specify within Mutt." +> +> I was wondering if you'd be willing to share that script? +> +> What I'm doing right now is just putting <pipe-message> in my muttrc and +> passing it to cat to saving the file in my notes folder. But I like the +> idea of giving it a title and everything right in mutt. I just can't +> seem to get that to work for me. +> +> Anyway, thanks for your time. +> +> cheers +> Scott Gilbertson +> sng@luxagraf.net +> diff --git a/script pandoc convert html to markdown.txt b/script pandoc convert html to markdown.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..eb091b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/script pandoc convert html to markdown.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +script- Pandoc convert HTML to Markdown + +find . -name \*.html -type f -exec pandoc -f html -t markdown -o {}.txt {} \;
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/set up debian droplet basics + nginx.txt b/set up debian droplet basics + nginx.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..00b7dbc --- /dev/null +++ b/set up debian droplet basics + nginx.txt @@ -0,0 +1,228 @@ +Set Up Debian Droplet - Basics + Nginx + +[refernces: +<http://www.howtoforge.com/building-nginx-from-source-on-debian-squeeze> +<http://www.rosehosting.com/blog/how-to-compile-and-install-nginx-from-source-in-debian-7-wheezy/> +<https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-setup-a-firewall-with-ufw-on-an-ubuntu-and-debian-cloud-server> +<https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/initial-server-setup-with-debian-7> +<https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-protect-ssh-with-fail2ban-on-debian-7>] + +First login as root and set new root password: + + passwd + +Then create new user: + + adduser whatever + +Then add user to suders list: + + visudo + whatever ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL + +test by sshing as new user. + +vultr specific: + +sudo vi /etc/hosts +sudo vi /etc/hostname + +##Secure the server + + vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config + +Add these lines: + +Port 25009 +Protocol 2 +PermitRootLogin no +UseDNS no + +Add this line to the bottom of the document, replacing demo with your username: + + AllowUsers whatever + +reload ssh: + + sudo service sshd restart + +test before you log out: + + ssh -p 25009 whatever@123.45.67.890 + +Add ssh keys + + cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh -p 25032 lxf@108.61.215.5 "mkdir -p ~/.ssh && cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys" + +--- + +###Install Zsh/Tmux + +(because doing only one thing at a time sucks) + + sudo apt-get update + sudo apt-get install tmux zsh + curl -L https://raw.github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh | sh + chsh -s /bin/zsh whatever + +###Set up fail2ban and UFW + + sudo apt-get install fail2ban + sudo cp /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf /etc/fail2ban/jail.local + sudo vi /etc/fail2ban/jail.local #(add IP to exclusions, up ban time) + sudo service fail2ban restart + + apt-get install ufw + sudo ufw default deny incoming + sudo ufw default deny outgoing + sudo ufw allow 25009/tcp + sudo ufw allow 80/tcp + sudo ufw allow 443/tcp + sudo ufw allow out http + sudo ufw allow out https + sudo ufw allow out 53 + sudo ufw enable + sudo ufw status verbose + +--- + +###Vim + + apt-get install vim + #I point to these in my vimrc, skip if you don't need them + mkdir -p ~/.vim/bundle/ + git clone https://github.com/VundleVim/Vundle.vim.git ~/.vim/bundle/Vundle.vim + +##Setup Nginx + + # check http://nginx.org/en/download.html for the latest version of nginx + # check https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/module/build_ngx_pagespeed_from_source for latest version of ngx_pagespeed and psol + # latest headers more https://github.com/openresty/headers-more-nginx-module/tags + # naxsi: https://github.com/nbs-system/naxsi/releases + +prereqs for building stuff: + + apt-get -y install build-essential zlib1g-dev libpcre3 libpcre3-dev libbz2-dev libssl-dev tar unzip + +prereqs for geo and ssl: + + apt-get install libgeoip1 libgeoip-dev openssl libssl-dev + # then grab the libraries: + sudo mkdir -p /etc/nginx/geoip + cd /etc/nginx/geoip + sudo wget http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCountry/GeoIP.dat.gz + sudo gunzip GeoIP.dat.gz + sudo wget http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCity.dat.gz + sudo gunzip GeoLiteCity.dat.gz + + #install the GeoIP C library. + cd /tmp + wget geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/api/c/GeoIP.tar.gz + tar -zxvf GeoIP.tar.gz + cd GeoIP-* + ./configure + make + sudo make install + + # That's all the pre-reqs, now cd in to nginx and compile: + cd nginx-* + + +config script for nginx source (debian paths): + + ./configure \ + --add-module=$HOME/src/naxsi-0.54/naxsi_src \ + --prefix=/usr/share/nginx \ + --sbin-path=/usr/sbin/nginx \ + --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf \ + --pid-path=/var/run/nginx.pid \ + --lock-path=/var/lock/nginx.lock \ + --error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log \ + --http-log-path=/var/log/access.log \ + --user=www-data \ + --group=www-data \ + --without-mail_pop3_module \ + --without-mail_imap_module \ + --without-mail_smtp_module \ + --with-http_stub_status_module \ + --with-http_ssl_module \ + --with-http_v2_module \ + --with-http_gzip_static_module \ + --with-pcre \ + --with-file-aio \ + --with-http_geoip_module \ + --add-module=$HOME/src/ngx_pagespeed-release-1.11.33.2-beta \ + --add-module=$HOME/src/headers-more-nginx-module-0.30 \ + + make + sudo make install + +The next thing is to enable autostart: + + sudo vim /lib/systemd/system/nginx.service + +# Stop dance for nginx +# ======================= +# +# ExecStop sends SIGSTOP (graceful stop) to the nginx process. +# If, after 5s (--retry QUIT/5) nginx is still running, systemd takes control +# and sends SIGTERM (fast shutdown) to the main process. +# After another 5s (TimeoutStopSec=5), and if nginx is alive, systemd sends +# SIGKILL to all the remaining processes in the process group (KillMode=mixed). +# +# nginx signals reference doc: +# http://nginx.org/en/docs/control.html +# +[Unit] +Description=A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server +After=network.target + +[Service] +Type=forking +PIDFile=/run/nginx.pid +ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t -q -g 'daemon on; master_process on;' +ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx -g 'daemon on; master_process on;' +ExecReload=/usr/sbin/nginx -g 'daemon on; master_process on;' -s reload +ExecStop=-/sbin/start-stop-daemon --quiet --stop --retry QUIT/5 --pidfile /run/nginx.pid +TimeoutStopSec=5 +KillMode=mixed + +[Install] +WantedBy=multi-user.target + + +sudo systemctl enable nginx.service +sudo systemctl start nginx.service +sudo systemctl status nginx.service + +sudo vim /etc/nginx/nginx.conf + + +user www-data; +events { + worker_connections 1024; +} +http { + include mime.types; + include /etc/nginx/naxsi_core.rules; + default_type application/octet-stream; + types_hash_bucket_size 64; + server_names_hash_bucket_size 128; + log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" ' + '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" ' + '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"'; + + #access_log logs/access.log main; + more_set_headers "Server: Graf Industries Custom Server"; + sendfile on; + keepalive_timeout 65; + gzip on; + pagespeed on; + pagespeed FileCachePath /var/ngx_pagespeed_cache; + limit_req_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=one:10m rate=1r/s; + include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*.conf; +} + + + sudo cp naxsi-0.53-2/naxci_config/naxsi_core.rule /etc/nginx + diff --git a/set up debian droplet python 3 + gunicorn + supervisor.txt b/set up debian droplet python 3 + gunicorn + supervisor.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..3f199b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/set up debian droplet python 3 + gunicorn + supervisor.txt @@ -0,0 +1,166 @@ +Set Up Debian Droplet - Python 3 + gunicorn + supervisor + +[reference: +<http://michal.karzynski.pl/blog/2013/06/09/django-nginx-gunicorn-virtualenv-supervisor/> +<http://wiki.nginx.org/HttpHeadersMoreModule#more_clear_input_headers> +<https://github.com/nbs-system/naxsi/wiki/basicsetup> +<http://pillow.readthedocs.org/en/latest/installation.html#linux-installation> +<http://codeinthehole.com/writing/how-to-install-postgis-and-geodjango-on-ubuntu/> +<http://docs.gunicorn.org/en/latest/configure.html> +<udo update-rc.ttp://edvanbeinum.com/how-to-install-and-configure-supervisord/> +] + +If you really want python3.3 you can compile it from scratch. That would eliminate the need to install virtualenv, since it's part of Python as of 3.3. I've gone that route, but for simplicity's sake most of the time I just use python 3.2 which has is available in the debian stable repos. I also grab pip from the repos, though gunicorn and supervisor I install via pip since I want those on a virtualenv-based per-project basis. + +So start with this: + + apt-get install python3.2 python3.2-dev python3-pip + +And then: + + pip-3.2 install virtualenv + +That gets us a nice python3 working setup, though note that you have to call python with python3 and pip-3.2. To cut down on the typing I just make aliases in my .zshrc along the lines of: + + alias p3="python3 " + alias p3p="pip-3.2 " + +Okay so we can use that to setup a working django environment with `virtualenv`. You can use [`virtualenvwrapper`](http://virtualenvwrapper.readthedocs.org/en/latest/) if you like, I find it to be unnecessary. I do something like this: + + mkdir -p apps/mydjangoapp + cd !$ + virtualenv --distribute --python=python3 venv + source venv/bin/activate + +There are few other things that you may want to install before we get around to actually installing stuff with pip. For example if you plan to use memcached you'll want to install pylibmc which needs: + + sudo apt-get install python-dev libmemcached-dev + +**Apparently pylibmc doesn't work with Python3 yet** + +Then I just load everything I need from my requirements.txt file, which lives in the config folder: + + pip install -r config/requirements.txt + +Where did that file come from? Typically I generate it with `pip freeze > requirements.txt` in my local development environment. + +Among the requirements will be gunicorn. If you don't already have a requirements file then you'd just do this: + + pip install gunicorn + +Okay, so we have our sandboxed python3 environment, along with gunicorn to act as a server for our site. In a minute we'll connect Nginx and gunicorn, but first let's make sure our gunicorn server restarts whenever our machine reboots. To do that we'll use `supervisor`. Here's where it gets tricky though, `supervisor` doesn't run under Python 3. It has no problem *managing* python 3 projects, it just doesn't run under python 3 yet. That means we can't just install it using pip3.2. + +We could install it with the system pip, but debian (and ubuntu) have a supervisor repo, so we can just do: + + sudo apt-get install supervisor + +That will install and start supervisor. Let's add an init script so that supervisord starts up should the server need to reboot. so create the file + + /etc/init.d/supervisord + +And grab the appropriate [init script from the supervisor project](https://github.com/Supervisor/initscripts). I use the Debian script from that link. Paste that script into `/etc/init.d/supervisord` and save. Then make it executable: + + sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/supervisord + +Now, make sure supervisor isn't running: + + supervisorctl shutdown + +And add supervisor to + +With Supervisor installed you can start and watch apps by creating configuration files in the `/etc/supervisor/conf.d` directory. You might do something like this, in, for example, `/etc/supervisor/conf.d/helloworld.conf`: + + [program:helloworld] + command = /home/<username>/apps/mydjangoapp/venv/bin/gunicorn -c /home/<username>/apps/mydjangoapp/config/gunicorn_config.py config.wsgi + directory = /home/<username>/apps/mydjangoapp/ + user = <non-privledged-user> + autostart = true + autorestart = true + stdout_logfile = /var/log/supervisor/helloworld.log + stderr_logfile = /var/log/supervisor/helloworld_err.log + +You'll need to fill in the correct paths based on your server setup, replacing <username> with your username and `mydjangoapp/etc...` with the actual path to the gunicorn app. This also assumes your gunicorn config file lives in `mydjangoapp/config/`. We'll get to that file in a minute. + +First, let's tell supervisor about our new app: + + sudo supervisorctl reread + +You should see a message `helloworld available`. So Supervisor knows about our app, let's actually add it. + + sudo supervisorctl update + +Now you should see a message that says something like `helloworld: added process group`. Supervisor is now aware of our hello world app and will make sure it automatically starts up whenever our server reboots. You can check the status of our gunicorn app with: + + sudo supervisorctl status + +Right now that will generate an error that looks something like this: + + helloworld FATAL can't find command '/home/<username>/apps/mydjangoapp/venv/bin/gunicorn' + + + + + +Now we just need to set up that gunicorn_config.py file we referenced earlier. + +In my setup that file looks like this: + + from os.path import dirname, abspath,join + # get the root folder for this project, which happens to be two folder up + PROJ_ROOT = abspath(dirname(dirname(dirname(__file__))))+'/' + command = join(PROJ_ROOT, "/venv/bin/gunicorn") + pythonpath = PROJ_ROOT + bind = '127.0.0.1:8002' + workers = 3 + log_level = "warning" + error_logfile = "/home/<username>/logs/gunicorn.error.log" + +This is pretty boilerplate, you just need to adjust the paths and it should work. The other thing to note is the line `bind = '127.0.0.1:8002'`. That's the address we'll pass requests to with Nginx. + +Okay, now let's go back to the Nginx tutorial we worked with in the previous part of this series. Here's what this looks like: + + + + # define an upstream server named gunicorn on localhost port 8002 + upstream gunicorn { + server localhost:8002; + } + + server { + listen 80; + server_name mydomain.com; + root /var/www/mydomain.com/; + error_log <path to logs>/mydomain.error.log main; + access_log <path to logs>/mydomain.access.log main; + # See http://wiki.nginx.org/HttpCoreModule#client_max_body_size + client_max_body_size 0; + + # this tries to serve a static file at the requested url + # if no static file is found, it passes the url to gunicorn + try_files $uri @gunicorn; + + # define rules for gunicorn + location @longgunicorn { + # repeated just in case + client_max_body_size 0; + + # proxy to the gunicorn upstream defined above + proxy_pass http://gunicorn; + + # makes sure the URLs don't actually say http://gunicorn + proxy_redirect off; + # If gunicorn takes > 3 minutes to respond, give up + proxy_read_timeout 3m; + + # make sure these HTTP headers are set properly + proxy_set_header Host $host; + proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; + proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; + + } + + + } + + + diff --git a/set up geodjango on debian 7 digital ocean.txt b/set up geodjango on debian 7 digital ocean.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..475c6eb --- /dev/null +++ b/set up geodjango on debian 7 digital ocean.txt @@ -0,0 +1,98 @@ +the first thing we need is python 3.4+ which I install by hand: + +prereqs: +sudo apt-get install build-essential libncursesw5-dev libssl-dev libgdbm-dev libc6-dev libsqlite3-dev tk-dev libreadline6-dev + +wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.4.1/Python-3.4.1.tgz +tar -xvzf Python-3.4.1.tgz +cd Python-3.4.1 +./configure --prefix=/opt/python3 +make +sudo make altinstall + +Then we need postgres and the geospatial libs: + +apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib binutils libproj-dev gdal-bin + + + +postgis 2 i also do from source: + +wget http://download.osgeo.org/postgis/source/postgis-2.1.3.tar.gz +tar -xvzf postgis-2.1.3.tar.gz +cd postgis-2.1.3 + +preqs: + +apt-get install libpq-dev postgresql-server-dev-all libxml2 libgeos-dev libxml2-dev gdal-bin libgdal-dev + +./configure +make +sudo make install + +Then you just need to create a db user and database + +sudo su - postgres +createuser -P -s -e luxagraf + +The with regular user: +createdb luxagraf -U luxagraf -W -hlocalhost +psql -U luxagraf -W -hlocalhost -d luxagraf +and when you're in postgres: +CREATE EXTENSION postgis; + +Then just load the data: +psql -U luxagraf -W -hlocalhost -d luxagraf -f fullbak.sql (or whatever your backupfile is) + + +The last thing is a virtualenv for our project using python3.4 + +#make sure you use the right pip (included with python 3.4+) +sudo /opt/python3/bin/pip3.4 install virtualenv +then cd to proj dir and do: +/opt/python3/bin/virtualenv --distribute --python=/opt/python3/bin/python3-4 venv +then activate and install what you need + +--- +Once that's set up we need to connect gunicorn to nginx via supervisor. + + sudo apt-get install supervisor + +That will install and start supervisor. Let's add an init script so that supervisord starts up should the server need to reboot. so create the file + + /etc/init.d/supervisord + +And grab the appropriate [init script from the supervisor project](https://github.com/Supervisor/initscripts). I use the Debian script from that link. Paste that script into `/etc/init.d/supervisord` and save. Then make it executable: + + sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/supervisord + +Now, make sure supervisor isn't running: + + supervisorctl shutdown + +And add supervisor to + +With Supervisor installed you can start and watch apps by creating configuration files in the `/etc/supervisor/conf.d` directory. You might do something like this, in, for example, `/etc/supervisor/conf.d/helloworld.conf`: + + [program:helloworld] + command = /home/<username>/apps/mydjangoapp/venv/bin/gunicorn -c /home/<username>/apps/mydjangoapp/config/gunicorn_config.py config.wsgi + directory = /home/<username>/apps/mydjangoapp/ + user = <non-privledged-user> + autostart = true + autorestart = true + stdout_logfile = /var/log/supervisor/helloworld.log + stderr_logfile = /var/log/supervisor/helloworld_err.log + +You'll need to fill in the correct paths based on your server setup, replacing <username> with your username and `mydjangoapp/etc...` with the actual path to the gunicorn app. This also assumes your gunicorn config file lives in `mydjangoapp/config/`. We'll get to that file in a minute. + +First, let's tell supervisor about our new app: + + sudo supervisorctl reread + +You should see a message `helloworld available`. So Supervisor knows about our app, let's actually add it. + + sudo supervisorctl update + +Now you should see a message that says something like `helloworld: added process group`. Supervisor is now aware of our hello world app and will make sure it automatically starts up whenever our server reboots. You can check the status of our gunicorn app with: + + sudo supervisorctl status
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/set up mysql php.txt b/set up mysql php.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2856f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/set up mysql php.txt @@ -0,0 +1,144 @@ + + +Everything you need for wordpress and piwik: + +apt-get install php5-dev libssh2-1-dev libssh2-php php5-geoip libgeoip-dev mysql-server php5-mysql php5-fpm fcgiwrap + +then run: + +sudo mysql_install_db +sudo /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation + + +mysql -u root -p +CREATE DATABASE local_stats_piwik; +CREATE USER piwiklocalstats@localhost; +SET PASSWORD FOR piwiklocalstats@localhost= PASSWORD(""); +GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON local_stats_piwik. TO piwiklocalstats IDENTIFIED BY ''; + +CREATE DATABASE longhandpixels_lhp_wp; +CREATE USER longhandpixels@localhost; +SET PASSWORD FOR longhandpixels@localhost= PASSWORD(""); +GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON longhandpixels_lhp_wp. TO longhandpixels IDENTIFIED BY ''; + +FLUSH PRIVILEGES; + +next edit + +sudo vim /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini + +cgi.fix_pathinfo=0 + +open_basedir = '/home/wp-user:/tmp:/home/lxf/git:/var/www/stats.luxagraf.net:/var/www/rss.luxagraf.net:/var/www/rss.longhandpixels.net:/var/www/longhandpixels.net:/var/www/git.luxagraf.net:/var/www/storage.luxagraf.net:/var/www/dev.longhandpixels.net' + +then: + +sudo service php5-fpm restart + +last thing to do for wordpress is create a user for secure updates. reference: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-configure-secure-updates-and-installations-in-wordpress-on-ubuntu + +sudo adduser wp-user +sudo chown -R wp-user:wp-user ~/apps/longhandpixels.net +sudo su - wp-user +ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 # save in /home/wp-user/wp_rsa +(answer blank to everything, including password) +exit +sudo chown wp-user:www-data /home/wp-user/wp_rsa* +sudo chmod 0640 /home/wp-user/wp_rsa* +sudo mkdir /home/wp-user/.ssh +sudo chown wp-user:wp-user /home/wp-user/.ssh/ +sudo chmod 0700 /home/wp-user/.ssh/ +sudo cp /home/wp-user/wp_rsa.pub /home/wp-user/.ssh/authorized_keys +sudo chown wp-user:wp-user /home/wp-user/.ssh/authorized_keys +sudo chmod 0644 /home/wp-user/.ssh/authorized_keys +sudo vim /home/wp-user/.ssh/authorized_keys + +add this to restrict to local connections: +from="127.0.0.1" ssh-rsa... +then + +sudo apt-get update +sudo apt-get install php5-dev libssh2-1-dev libssh2-php +vim apps/longhandpixels.net/wp-config.php + +add these lines: + +define('FTP_PUBKEY','/home/wp-user/wp_rsa.pub'); +define('FTP_PRIKEY','/home/wp-user/wp_rsa'); +define('FTP_USER','wp-user'); +define('FTP_PASS',''); +define('FTP_HOST','127.0.0.1:sshport'); + +restart nginx and it should work. make sure that wp-user in allowed ssh hosts and /home/wp-user/ is in open_basedir in php.ini. + + +## Piwik specific: + +grab piwik: + +wget http://builds.piwik.org/piwik.zip && unzip piwik.zip +mv piwik apps/app.name +sudo chown -R www-data:www-data apps/app.name +mkdir -p /tmp/cache/tracker/ + + +apt-get install php5-gd libfreetype6 # for nice parklines + +How do I install the GeoIP Geo location PECL extension? from http://piwik.org/faq/how-to/#faq_163 + + sudo pecl install geoip + +Finally, add the following to your php.ini file: + + extension=geoip.so + geoip.custom_directory=/path/to/piwik/misc + +Replace /path/to/piwik with the path to your Piwik installation. + +And finally, if you are using the GeoLite City database there is one more thing you need to do. The PECL extension won’t recognize the database if it’s named GeoLiteCity.dat so make sure it is named GeoIPCity.dat. + +in my case : + + cp GeoLiteCity.dat apps/stats.luxagraf.net/misc/GeoIPCity.dat + +sudo chown -R www-data:www-data apps/stats.luxagraf.net/misc/GeoIPCity.dat + +# postgres, postgis python setup + +apt-get install build-essential python python3 python-dev python3-dev python-pip python3-pip python-setuptools +sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-server-dev-all +sudo apt-get install binutils libproj-dev gdal-bin postgis postgresql-9.4-postgis-2.1 + + +Stuff for Pillow: +apt-get install libtiff5-dev libjpeg62-turbo-dev zlib1g-dev libfreetype6-dev liblcms2-dev libwebp-dev tcl8.6-dev tk8.6-dev python-tk + +Install uwsgi: + +PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV=false +sudo pip3 install uwsgi + +sudo vi /etc/systemd/system/uwsgi.service + + +[Unit] +Description=uWSGI Emperor +After=syslog.target + +[Service] +ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/uwsgi --ini /etc/uwsgi/emperor.ini +Restart=always +KillSignal=SIGQUIT +Type=notify +StandardError=syslog +NotifyAccess=all + +[Install] +WantedBy=multi-user.target + + +sudo mkdir -p /etc/uwsgi/vassals/ && cd /etc/uwsgi/vassals +sudo ln -s ~/apps/luxagraf/config/django.ini /etc/uwsgi/vassals/ +sudo systemctl start uwsgi +sudo systemctl enable uwsgi + diff --git a/set up uwsgi django.txt b/set up uwsgi django.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..37df453 --- /dev/null +++ b/set up uwsgi django.txt @@ -0,0 +1,82 @@ +How to Set Up Django with uWSGI on Debian 8 + +First make sure uWSGI is installed in the virtualenv. + +virt && pip install uwsgi + +Then because we want to start an emperor with systemd so that the server will come back up on reboot we need the global version installed as well. + +Because I set pip to require a virtualenv by default I have to first disable that: + +PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV=false + +Then: + +pip install uwsgi + +Now we need a systemd service file. Here's what I use (again, the path is the standard Debian install locations, your system may vary, though I believe Ubuntu is the same) + +[Unit] +Description=uWSGI Emperor +After=syslog.target + +[Service] +ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/uwsgi --ini /etc/uwsgi/emperor.ini +Restart=always +KillSignal=SIGQUIT +Type=notify +StandardError=syslog +NotifyAccess=all + +[Install] +WantedBy=multi-user.target + +Save that to /lib/systemd/system/uwsgi.service + +Then try starting it: + +sudo systemctl start uwsgi + +This should cause an error like so... + +Job for uwsgi.service failed. See 'systemctl status uwsgi.service' and '' for details. + +If you look at the journal you'll see that the problem is that uwsgi can't find the emperor.ini file in our service file. So, let's create that file. + +Most likely the directory /etc/uwsgi doesn't exist so create that and then the emperor.ini file in it: + +mkdir /etc/uwsgi +vim /etc/uwsgi/emperor.ini + +Here's the contents of my emperor.ini: + +[uwsgi] +emperor = /etc/uwsgi/vassals +uid = www-data +gid = www-data +limit-as = 1024 +logto = /tmp/uwsgi.log + +The last step is to create the vassals directory we just reference in emperor.ini: + +sudo mkdir /etc/uwsgi/vassals + +Now go back and try starting again: + +sudo systemctl start uwsgi + +That should work. Then stop it and add it to systemd so it will startup with the system: + +sudo systemctl stop uwsgi +sudo systemctl enable uwsgi +sudo systemctl start uwsgi + +uwsgi is now running. + +The next step is to add a vassal. To do that just symlink your uwsgi file into /etc/uwsgi/vassals. The exact paths will vary, but something like: + +sudo ln -s /path/to/your/project/django.ini /etc/uwsgi/vassals/ + +Further Reading: + +* As mentioned above, [this gist](https://gist.github.com/evildmp/3094281) covers how to setup the Django end of the equation and covers more of what's actually happening in this setup. diff --git a/seth brown's writer workflow.txt b/seth brown's writer workflow.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..52612f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/seth brown's writer workflow.txt @@ -0,0 +1,84 @@ +Seth Brown's Writer Workflow + +From <http://www.macdrifter.com/2012/05/seth-browns-writer-workflow.html> +# Seth Brown’s Writer Workflow + +May 08, 2012 by Gabe + +**Editor's Note:** Seth Brown writes about extremely technical topics over at DrBunsen.org. His interests span from awesome [vim overviews](http://www.drbunsen.org/text-triumvirate.html) to [personal productivity](http://www.drbunsen.org/towards-effective-information-processing.html) with some [stop overs in whisky town](http://www.drbunsen.org/malt-analysis.html). Virtually everything he posts I put straight into Instapaper. That is if I can wait to read it. Most of the time I stop everything to read each post entirely. Each post is a little technical course on a single fascinating topic.. + +### _If you like, please provide a brief bio_ + +My name is Seth Brown. I live in the United States with my wife Katrina and our dog Stewie. By day, I'm a [bioinformatician](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioinformatics). I use statistics and computers to analyze [big data](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data) and understand human disease. By night I use the same tools to build stuff, answer questions that interest me, and act deliciously geeky. [Mark Twain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain) said that work and play are two words that describe the same thing under different conditions—I feel extremely lucky to be able to agree with him. + +### _Why did you start writing at DrBunsen.org_ + +I started [DrBunsen.org](http://www.drbunsen.org/) from a confluence of things that were happening in my life. I had just finished an enjoyable post as a visiting professor and I felt a need to continue educating after I left my position. Web development was something that I had no prior experience with and something that I always had an itch to learn. I wanted a public venue where I could continue to improve my writing, coding, and analytical skills as well as interact with other people who shared similar interests. Creating a website satisfied all of these criteria, so here we are. + +### _How do you capture your ideas and research an article on your blog?_ + +Capture is frequently precipitated by my own interests in learning something new. One of the best way to learn something is to write about it. This is one way I try to [trick myself into being awesome](http://japhr.blogspot.com/2012/04/366-or-how-i-tricked-myself-into-being.html). I get ideas by trying to answer questions that I think are interesting, pursuing difficult problems I've encountered, and writing about inspiring subjects. + +I capture most of my ideas with pen and paper or on my office whiteboard. Lately, I've been using the [Retro 51 Tornado](http://www.retro51.com/fwi_tor_classiclacquers.html) for most of my paper capture. I digitize everything, so the irony here is not lost on me. I've yet to find another medium that rivals the speed, information density, or expressiveness of drawing for capture and idea generation. From these physical inputs, I use an automated system that I wrote to archive daily digital snapshots of my whiteboard and other drawings and images that I take with my iPhone camera. Apps like [Prizmo](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/prizmo/id366791896?mt=8) make the iPhone a powerful capture tool in my workflow. + +A nascent blog post begins when I create a new [OmniFocus](http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus/) project and import an image of a drawing that I've captured into the project. I like to further develop my posts from within OmniFocus in the form of shallow outlines; simple bullet points mostly. I also add links, images, and sometimes audio data to the project. My best ideas occur at random times so I like to confine the development process to OmniFocus where I can quickly capture supporting ideas at my computer or remotely on iOS. When I feel that I've accumulated sufficient material, I use my OmniFocus outline as a guide for writing my posts. Most of my blog post ideas die at this stage when I come to the realization that either my ideas are poor or someone has already written something better than I could ever hope to produce. Once I've accumulated sufficient material within the OmniFocus project, I start the writing process. + +### _How does this differ from your process for writing professionally?_ + +The initial idea capturing process is similar between my blog and professional work. My work projects are larger and more complex, so I supplement my capture process by using a wiki system generated with [Gollum](https://github.com/github/gollum) and written in Markdown. I find that wikis are a great medium to organize, consolidate, and interconnect my drawings, with URLs, PDF files, visualizations, and other resources relevant to a given project. I frequently have impromptu whiteboard brain-storming sessions with coworkers that I capture with my iPhone and later add to my wiki. Drawing and image capture are very useful in these contexts. + +### _You write a lot of code. How do you research and create code for your professional and personal projects?_ + +I create personal and professional code similar to how I create prose. Coding and writing are essentially the same thing. I start coding projects by drawing diagrams of how my programs will work, how the individual pieces will fit together, and what data structures and algorithms I plan to use. If I'm creating a tool that other people will use, I think about the user interface first and work backward to write the implementation. Experience has taught me that diving into a project without thoroughly thinking it through leads to downstream problems. + +I don't research code _per say_, but I do like to read code to make myself a better programmer. I read great writers to understand how to become a better writer, so this seems like what I should be doing with code as well—the [XMonad source code](http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Guided_tour_of_the_xmonad_source) and Peter Norvig's [Sudoku puzzle solver](http://norvig.com/sudoku.html) are beautiful examples. + +Whenever I encounter a useful piece of code, I add it to my snippet library if the snippet is short or refactor it into one of own my personal modules. I've always struggle with how best to keep small code snippets, but I've settled on using [CodeBox](http://www.shpakovski.com/codebox/). I have very large snippet libraries for several languages, so searching my own resources is usually the fastest way to find what I need. [Symbol Hound](http://www.symbolhound.com/) and [Hoogle](http://www.haskell.org/hoogle/) are also handy tools for metacharacter queries and other special searches. + +### _Can you provide an overview of your writing process?_ + +It's essential for me to build an outline in OmniFocus prior to starting the writing process. The outline is a way for me to evaluate whether I can write a cohesive body of text around an idea. The cornerstone of good writing is good ideas. I like outlines because they allow me to see how my writing will look and flow. Once I have the substance captured in outline form, I can concentrate on the flow and syntax of my words during the writing process. + +Before I start writing, I like to read short passages from great writers. I write mostly technical material, so I try to read and emulate the styles of the best technical writers I know—[Harold Varmus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_E._Varmus), [Brian Kernighan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Kernighan), and [Oliver Sacks](http://www.oliversacks.com/) to name a few. I try to absorb their styles and integrate them into my own. In the words of Paul Graham, [copy what you like](http://www.paulgraham.com/copy.html) and in the words of Ausin Kleon, [steal like an artist](http://www.austinkleon.com/2011/03/30/how-to-steal-like-an-artist-and-9-other-things-nobody-told-me/). + +I write the final version of a document start to finish, paragraph by paragraph, until the final version is finished. I write in Markdown for my blog and initially Markdown for my professional work, which later gets converted to [TeX](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX) and rendered with the [XeTeX](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XeTeX) engine. I've never been able to write drafts and then iterate through revisions until a final version is produced. I rarely finish a post in one sitting. I like to write in short spurts over the course of several days. As I write, I like to read my words aloud. This technique greatly improves my writing. + +If I get stuck while writing, I use a few techniques to help me. Sometimes I start working on another project for a few days then go back to writing. Switching working environments and input devices can help. I move from working on the computer at my standing desk to an iPad on a chase. If I get stuck more than once or twice while working on a piece, it's usually a sign that my original ideas are flawed. + +### _How long have you been doing it this way?_ + +Since college. + +### _What enhancements have you made to make writing and research easier?_ + +Practice is the biggest enhancement I've made to my writing. The more I write, the better and faster I get. I use several tools I've written to help me automate steps in the writing process. I write a lot of Markdown and one of my favorite enhancements is a simple Markdown formatting tool that I've written called [formd](http://drbunsen.github.com/formd/). I also make heavy use of [TextExpander](http://smilesoftware.com/TextExpander/) to simplify a lot of writing drudgery. TextExpander is especially useful for Unicode characters. I have an entire snippet group dedicated to Unicode, which greatly speeds up my professional writing where I use a lot of obscure math symbols and greek letters. + +I've experimented with many different research enhancements over the years. [Towards Effective Information Processing](http://www.drbunsen.org/towards-effective-information-processing.html) is kind of my manifesto on this subject. Learning to automate much of the initial research process has been the biggest enhancement that I've made. + +### _Do you have a specific work environment or setup for researching and composing an article?_ + +My home office is my preferred working environment because it's where I get the most done. The lack of a commute and the distraction free environment make me much more productive than in a typical office. My work environment consists of a [standing drafting table](http://www.drbunsen.org/standing-office-setup.html) with a [three monitor configuration](http://www.drbunsen.org/tri-display-desk.html) and [bias lighting](http://www.drbunsen.org/bias-lighting.html). I spent my youth working on drafting tables and it remains my preferred work surface. My left display always has a full screen [iTerm2](http://www.iterm2.com/#/section/home) window running in it. I spend close to 90% of my time between [iTerm2](http://www.iterm2.com/#/section/home) and Google Chrome. I use terminal Vim inside iTerm for all [my writing](http://www.drbunsen.org/writing-in-vim.html) and coding. + +### _Do you write from a mobile device? If so, how does this process differ from your desk computer?_ + +I write with my iPad. My writing process really doesn't change very much on the iPad, it just slows down. I don't find that the iPad can even remotely substitute for my work station, but I do feel it plays an important role in my writing workflow. The iPad allows me to sit outside or in a remote location, which can sometimes help me write. + +I use OmniFocus for the iPad since I use OmniFocus so heavily on my Mac. Dropbox is the glue that holds all my writing together on my computer and remote devices. I completely burnt-out on iOS Dropbox text editors sometime in 2009. There are just too many excellent iOS apps to keep track of. I just use whatever [Federico Viticci recommends](http://www.macstories.net/stories/my-dropbox-writing-workflow/); lately that's [Writing Kit](http://getwritingkit.com/) on the iPad. Thanks to [your recommendations](http://www.macdrifter.com/2012/03/doing-research-with-an-ipad-part-2-reference-material.html), I also use [Terminology](http://agiletortoise.com/terminology) frequently while I write. + +### _Does your workflow change based on the type of post?_ + +No. + +### _What parts of your workflow are you looking to change or improve?_ + +Contextual awareness. + +Location-specific functionality is an untapped area of my workflow. There is tremendous potential to leverage proximity sensors and WiFi location to carry out specific actions though a computer or mobile device. Every six months, I try to integrate contextual functionality into my workflow with little success. In an ideal world, my iPhone would open my garage door, turn the lights on in my office, and open a terminal window because it is aware that I am in the car, close to home, and at 11am there is a high probability that I will be working on the command line. + +### _What parts of your workflow are you least willing to change?_ + +Maybe I'm dodging the question, but I'm willing to drop any piece of my workflow if it makes me a faster or better writer. I have no allegiances. With that being said, it will take something special to get me to get me to move away from Vim as my text editor. + +### _Anything else you would like to share about your workflow?_ + +I write best in flannel surrounded by the [The Goldberg Variations](http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Goldberg-Variations-Glenn-Gould/dp/B0000025PM). diff --git a/space pen gel ink refills.txt b/space pen gel ink refills.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..fe51b02 --- /dev/null +++ b/space pen gel ink refills.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +Zebra G301 gel
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/startproducing.txt b/startproducing.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..f507e74 --- /dev/null +++ b/startproducing.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +startproducing + +I make sure to start every day as a producer, not a consumer. + +When you get up, you may start with a good routine like showering and eating, but as soon as you find yourself with some free time you probably get that urge to check Reddit, open that game you were playing, see what you're missing on Facebook, etc. + +Put all of this off until "later". Start your first free moments of the day with thoughts of what you really want to do; those long-term things you're working on, or even the basic stuff you need to do today, like cooking, getting ready for exercise, etc. + +This keeps you from falling into the needy consumer mindset. That mindset where you find yourself endlessly surfing Reddit, Facebook, etc. trying to fill a void in yourself, trying to find out what you're missing, but never feeling satisfied. + +When you've started your day with doing awesome (not necessarily difficult) things for yourself, these distractions start to feel like a waste of time. You check Facebook just to make sure you're not missing anything important directed at you, but scrolling down and reading random stuff in your feed feels like stepping out into the Disneyland parking lot to listen to what's playing on the car radio - a complete waste of time compared to what you're really doing today. + +It sounds subtle, but these are the only days where I find myself getting anything done. I either start my day like this and feel normal and productive, or I look up and realize it's early evening, I haven't accomplished anything and I can't bring myself to focus no matter how hard I want to. + +from reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/pbjk1/what_are_the_small_lifestyle_changes_youve_made/c3o3ejr diff --git a/street-photographers.txt b/street-photographers.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cf1075e --- /dev/null +++ b/street-photographers.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +Martine Franck +Fred Herzog +Vivian Maier +Helen Levitt + diff --git a/terrence malik's to the wonder.txt b/terrence malik's to the wonder.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..652e60c --- /dev/null +++ b/terrence malik's to the wonder.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +Terrence Malik's To The Wonder + + +I like it because it reminded me that life is a series of singular moments, +each one of them significant if we choose to give them significance. And of +course insignificant if we choose to regard them as such. It wasn't the finest +film I've seen by any means, not even one of Mali's best, but I enjoyed it +because he never ceases to make me think and feel in ways that most films +don't. There's not much of a narrative, just enough to satisfy that need for +linearity, but it doesn't want to be there really and maybe it shouldn't be, +maybe that's what holds it back fro being much better, but in either case I +enjoyed it in the same way I "enjoy" Buddhism, because it reminds me that I am +living, that each moment is there to an then gone. there and then gone, it's +up to use to exist in them, to notice them. + diff --git a/the abolition of work.txt b/the abolition of work.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..68a4f9e --- /dev/null +++ b/the abolition of work.txt @@ -0,0 +1,104 @@ +--- +title: THE ABOLITION OF WORK +date: 2015-03-29T00:35:56Z +source: http://deoxy.org/endwork.htm +tags: philosophy, anarchism, culture + +--- + +![ARBEIT MACHT FREI - WORK MAKES ONE FREE - entrance to Nazi concentration camp at Theresienstadt, Germany][1] **No one should ever work.** + +Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost all the evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. **In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working. ** + +That doesn't mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play; in other words, a _ludic_ revolution. By "play" I mean also festivity, creativity, conviviality, commensality, and maybe even art. There is more to play than child's play, as worthy as that is. I call for a collective adventure in generalized joy and freely interdependent exuberance. Play isn't passive. Doubtless we all need a lot more time for sheer sloth and slack than we ever enjoy now, regardless of income or occupation, but once recovered from employment-induced exhaustion nearly all of us [will] want [to] act. Oblomovism and Stakhanovism are two sides of same debased coin. + +**The ludic life is totally incompatible with existing reality. So much the worse for "reality," the gravity hole that sucks the vitality from the little in life that still distinguishes it from mere survival.** Curiouslymaybe notall the old ideologies are conservative because they believe in work. Some of them, like Marxism and most brands of anarchism, believe in work all the more fiercely because they believe in so little else. + +Liberals say we should end employment discrimination. **I say we should end employment**. Conservatives support right-to-work laws. Following Karl Marx's wayward son-in-law Paul Lafargue **I support the right to be lazy**. Leftists favor full employment. Like the surrealistsexcept that I'm not kidding**I favor full unemployment**. Trotskyists agitate for permanent revolution. **I agitate for permanent revelry**. But if all the ideologues (as they do) advocate workand not only because they plan to make other people do theirsthey are strangely reluctant to say so. They will carry on endlessly about wages, hours, working conditions, exploitation, productivity, profitability. They'll gladly talk about anything but work itself. These experts who offer to do our thinking for us rarely share their conclusions about work, for all its saliency in the lives of all of us. Among themselves they quibble over the details. Unions and management agree that we ought to sell the time of our lives in exchange for survival, although they haggle over the price. Marxists think we should be bossed by bureaucrats. Libertarians think we should be bossed by businessmen. Feminists don't care which form bossing takes so long as the bosses are women. Clearly these ideology-mongers have serious differences over how to divvy up the spoils of power. **Just as clearly, none of them have any objection to power as such and all of them want to keep us working.** + +You may be wondering if I'm joking or serious. I'm joking _and_ serious. To be ludic is not to be ludicrous. Play doesn't have to be frivolous, although frivolity isn't triviality: very often we ought to take frivolity seriously. I'd like life to be a game \- but a game with high stakes. I want to play _for keeps._ + +**The alternative to work isn't just idleness.** To be ludic is not to be quaaludic. As much as I treasure the pleasure of torpor, it's never more rewarding than when it punctuates other pleasures and pastimes. Nor am I promoting the managed time-disciplined safety-valve called "leisure"; far from it. Leisure is non-work for the sake of work. Leisure is the time spent recovering from work, and in the frenzied but hopeless attempt to forget about work many people return from vacations so beat that they look forward to returning to work so they can rest up. The main difference between work and leisure is that at work at least you get paid for your alienation and enervation. + +I am not playing definitional games with anybody. When I say I want to abolish work, I mean just what I say, but I want to say what I mean by defining my terms in non-idiosyncratic ways. My minimun definition of work is _forced labor_, that is, compulsory production. Both elements are essential. **Work is production enforced by economic or political means, by the carrot or the stick**. (The carrot is just the stick by other means.) But not all creation is work. Work is never done for its own sake, it's done on account of some product or output that the worker (or, more often, somebody else) gets out of it. This is what work necessarily is. **To define it is to despise it**. But work is usually even worse than its definition decrees. The dynamic of domination intrinsic to work tends over time toward elaboration. In advanced work-riddled societies, including all industrial societies whether capitalist or "communist," work invariably acquires other attributes which accentuate its obnoxiousness. + +Usuallyand this is even more true in "communist" than capitalist countries, where the state is almost the only employer and everyone is an employee**work is employment, _i.e._, wage-labor, which means selling yourself on the installment plan**. Thus 95% of Americans who work, work for somebody (or some_thing_) else. In the USSR or Cuba or Yugoslavia or Nicaragua or any other alternative model which might be adduced, the corresponding figure approaches 100%. Only the embattled Third World peasant bastionsMexico, India, Brazil, Turkeytemporarily shelter significant concentrations of agriculturists who perpetuate the traditional arrangement of most laborers in the last several millennia, the payment of taxes (ransom) to the state or rent to parasitic landlords in return for being otherwise left alone. Even this raw deal is beginning to look good. _**All**_** industrial (and office) workers are employees and under the sort of surveillance which ensures servility**. + +But modern work has worse implications. People don't just work, they have "jobs." One person does one productive task all the time on an or-else basis. Even if the task has a quantum of intrinsic interest (as increasingly many jobs don't) the monotony of its obligatory exclusivity drains its ludic potential. A "job" that might engage the energies of some people, for a reasonably limited time, for the fun of it, is just a burden on those who have to do it for forty hours a week with no say in how it should be done, for the profit of owners who contribute nothing to the project, and with no opportunity for sharing tasks or spreading the work among those who actually have to do it. This is the real world of work: a world of bureaucratic blundering, of sexual harassment and discrimination, of bonehead bosses exploiting and scapegoating their subordinates whoby any rational-technical criteria - should be calling the shots. But capitalism in the real world subordinates the rational maximization of productivity and profit to the exigencies of organizational control. + +The degradation which most workers experience on the job is the sum of assorted indignities which can be denominated as "discipline." Foucault has complexified this phenomenon but it is simple enough. Discipline consists of the totality of totalitarian controls at the workplacesurveillance, rotework, imposed work tempos, production quotas, punching-in and -out, etc. **Discipline is what the factory and the office and the store share with the prison and the school and the mental hospital**. It is something historically original and horrible. It was beyond the capacities of such demonic tators of yore as Nero and Genghis Khan and Ivan the Terrible. For all their bad intentions they just didn't have the machinery to control their subjects as thoroughly as modern despots do. Discipline is the distinctively diabolical modern mode of control, it is an innovative intrusion which must be interdicted at the earliest opportunity. + +Such is "work." Play is just the opposite. Play is always voluntary. **What might otherwise be play is work if it's forced. This is axiomatic**. Bernie de Koven has defined play as the "suspension of consequences." This is unacceptable if it implies that play is inconsequential. The point is not that play is without consequences. Playing and giving are closely related, they are the behavioral and transactional facets of the same impulse, the play-instinct. They share an aristocratic disdain for results. The player gets something out of playing; that's why he plays. But the core reward is the experience of the activity itself (whatever it is). Some otherwise attentive students of play, like Johan Huizinga (_Homo Ludens_) define it as game-playing or following rules. I respect Huizinga's erudition but emphatically reject his constraints. There are many good games (chess, baseball, Monopoly, bridge) which are rule-govemed but there is much more to play than game-playing. Conversation, sex, dancing, travelthese practices aren't rule-governed but they are surely play if anything is. And rules can be _played with_ at least as readily as anything else. + +**Work makes a mockery of freedom**. The official line is that we all have rights and live in a democracy. Other unfortunates who aren't free like we are have to live in police states. These victims obey orders or-else, no matter how arbitrary. The authorities keep them under regular surveillance. State bureaucrats control even the smaller details of everyday life. The officials who push them around are answerable only to the higher-ups, public or private. Either way, dissent and disobedience are punished. Informers report regularly to the authorities. All this is supposed to be a very bad thing. + +And so it is, although it is nothing but a description of the modern workplace. The liberals and conservatives and libertarians who lament totalitarianism are phonies and hypocrites. **There is more freedom in any moderately de-Stalinized dictatorship than there is in the ordinary American workplace.** You find the same sort of hierarchy and discipline in an office or factory as you do in a prison or a monastery. In fact, as Foucault and others have shown, prisons and factories came in at about the same time, and their operators consciously borrowed from each other's control techniques. **A worker is a part-time slave**. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors; he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called "insubordination," just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation. Without necessarily endorsing it for them either, it is noteworthy that children at home and in school receive much the same treatment, justified in their case by their supposed immaturity. What does this say about their parents and teachers who work? + +The demeaning system of domination I've described rules over half the waking hours of a majority of women and the vast majority of men for decades, for most of their lifespans. **For certain purposes it's not too misleading to call our system democracy or capitalism orbetter stillindustrialism, but its real names are factory fascism and office oligarchy. **Anybody who says these people are "free" is lying or stupid. _You are what you do_. If you do boring, stupid, monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous. **Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinization all around us than even such significant moronizing mechanisms as television and education**. People who are regimented all their lives, handed off to work from school and bracketed by the family in the beginning and the nursing home at the end, are habituated to hierarchy and psychologically enslaved. Their aptitude for autonomy is so atrophied that their fear of freedom is among their few rationally grounded phobias. Their obedience training at work carries over into the families they start, thus reproducing the system in more ways than one, and into politics, culture and everything else. Once you drain the vitality from people at work, they'll likely submit to hierarchy and expertise in everything. They're used to it. + +**We are so close to the world of work that we can't see what it does to us.** We have to rely on outside observers from other times or other cultures to appreciate the extremity and the pathology of our present position. There was a time in our own past when the "work ethic" would have been incomprehensible, and perhaps Weber was on to something when he tied its appearance to a religion, Calvinism, which if it emerged today instead of four centuries ago would immediately and appropriately be labelled a cult. Be that as it may, we have only to draw upon the wisdom of antiquity to put work in perspective. The ancients saw work for what it is, and their view prevailed, the Calvinist cranks notwithstanding, until overthrown by industrialismbut not before receiving the endorsement of its prophets. + +**Let's pretend for a moment that work doesn't turn people into stultified submissives.** Let's pretend, in defiance of any plausible psychology and the ideology of its boosters, that it has no effect on the formation of character. And let's pretend that work isn't as boring and tiring and humiliating as we all know it really is. Even then, work would _still_ make a mockery of all humanistic and democratic aspirations, just because it usurps so much of our time. **Socrates said that manual laborers make bad friends and bad citizens because they have no time to fulfill the responsibilities of friendship and citizenship. He was right.** Because of work, no matter what we do we keep looking at our watches. The only thing "free" about so-called free time is that it doesn't cost the boss anything. Free time is mostly devoted to getting ready for work, going to work, returning from work, and recovering from work. **Free time is a euphemism for the peculiar way labor as a factor of production not only transports itself at its own expense to and from the workplace but assumes primary responsibility for its own maintenance and repair.** Coal and steel don't do that. Lathes and typewriters don't do that. But workers do. No wonder Edward G. Robinson in one of his gangster movies exclaimed, "_Work is for saps!_" + +Both Plato and Xenophon attribute to Socrates and obviously share with him an awareness of the destructive effects of work on the worker as a citizen and as a human being. Herodotus identified contempt for work as an attribute of the classical Greeks at the zenith of their culture. To take only one Roman example, **Cicero said that "whoever gives his labor for money sells himself and puts himself in the rank of slaves."** His candor is now rare, but contemporary primitive societies which we are wont to look down upon have provided spokesmen who have enlightened Westem anthropologists. The Kapauku of West Irian, according to Posposil, have a conception of balance in life and accordingly work only every other day, the day of rest designed "to regain the lost power and health." Our ancestors, even as late as the eighteenth century when they were far along the path to our present predicament, at least were aware of what we have forgotten, the underside of industrialization. Their religious devotion to "St. Monday"thus establishing a _de facto_ five-day week 150-200 years before its legal consecrationwas the despair of the earliest Factory owners. They took a long time in submitting to the tyranny of the bell, predecessor of the time clock. In fact it was necessary for a generation or two to replace adult males with women accustomed to obedience and children who could be molded to fit industrial needs. Even the exploited peasants of the _ancien regime_ wrested substantial time back from their landlord's work. According to Lafargue; a fourth of the French peasants' calendar was devoted to Sundays and holidays, and Chayanov's figures from villages in Czarist Russiahardly a progressive societylikewise show a fourth or fifth of peasants' days devoted to repose. Controlling for productivity, we are obviously far behind these backward societies. The exploited _muzhiks_ would wonder why any of us are working at all. So should we. + +**To grasp the full enormity of our deterioration, however, consider the earliest condition of humanity, without government or property, when we wandered as hunter-gatherers. **Hobbes surmised that life was then nasty, brutish and short. Others assume that life was a desperate unremitting struggle for subsistence, a war raged against a harsh Nature with death and disaster awaiting the unlucky or anyone who was unequal to the challenge of the struggle for existence. Actually, that was all a projection of fears for the collapse of govemment authority over communities unaccustomed to doing without it, like the England of Hobbes during the Civil War. Hobbes' compatriots had already encountered alternative forms of society which illustrated other ways of lifein North America, particularlybut already these were too remote from their experience to be understandable. (The lower orders, closer to the condition of the Indians, understood it better and often found it attractive. **Throughout the seventeenth century, English settlers defected to Indian tribes or, captured in war, refused to return. But the Indians no more defected to white settlements than West Germans climb the Berlin Wall from the west.**) The "survival of the fittest" versionthe Thomas Huxley versionof Darwinism was a better account of economic conditions in Victorian England than it was of natural selection, as the anarchist Kropotkin showed in his book _Mutual Aid, A Factor of Evolution_. (Kropotkin was a scientistgeographerwho'd had ample involuntary opportunity for fieldwork whilst exiled in Siberia: he knew what he was talking about. Like most social and political theory, the story Hobbes and his successors told was really unacknowledged autobiography. + +The anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, surveying the data on contemporary hunter-gatherers, exploded the Hobbesian myth in an article entitled "The Original Affluent Society." They work a lot less than we do, and their work is hard to distinguish from what we regard as play. Sahlins concluded that "**hunters and gatherers work less than we do; and, rather than a continuous travail, the food quest is intemmittent, leisure abundant, and there is a greater amount of sleep in the daytime per capita per year than in any other condition of society.**" They worked an average of four hours a day, assuming they were "working" at all. Their "labor," as it appears to us, was skilled labor which exercised their physical and intellectual capacities; unskilled labor on any large scale, as Sahlins says, is impossible except under industrialism. Thus it satisfied Friedrich Schiller's definition of play, the only occasion on which man realizes his complete humanity by giving full "play" to both sides of his twofold nature, thinking and feeling. As he put it: "**The animal _works_ when deprivation is the mainspring of its activity, and it _plays_ when the fullness of its strength is this mainspring, when superabundant life is its own stimulus to activity.**" (A modern versiondubiously developmental \- is Abraham Maslow's counterposition of "deficiency" and "growth" motivation.) Play and freedom are, as regards production, coextensive. Even Marx, who belongs (for all his good intentions) in the productivist pantheon, observed that "the realm of freedom does not commence until the point is passed where labor under the compulsion of necessity and external utility is required." He never could quite bring himself to identify this happy circumstance as what it is, **the abolition of work** \- it's rather anomalous, after all, to be pro-worker and anti-work \- but we can. + +**The aspiration to go backwards or forwards to a life without work is evident in every serious social or cultural history of pre-industrial Europe**, among them M. Dorothy George's _England in Transition_ and Peter Burke's _Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe_. Also pertinent is Daniel Bell's essay "Work and Its Discontents," the first text, I believe, to refer to the "revolt against work" in so many words and, had it been understood, an important correction to the complacency ordinarily associated with the volume in which it was collected, _The End of Ideology_. Neither critics nor celebrants have noticed that Bell's end-of-ideology thesis signalled not the end of social unrest but the beginning of a new, uncharted phase unconstrained and uninformed by ideology. It was Seymour Lipset (in _Political Man_), not Bell, who announced at the same time that "the fundamental problems of the Industrial Revolution have been solved," only a few years before the post- or metaindustrial discontents of college students drove Lipset from UC Berkeley to the relative (and temporary) tranquillity of Harvard. + +As Bell notes, Adam Smith in _The Wealth of Nations_, for all his enthusiasm for the market and the division of labor, was more alert to (and more honest about) the seamy side of work than Ayn Rand or the Chicago economists or any of Smith's modem epigones. As Smith observed: "**The understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose life is spent in performing a few simple operations . . . has no occasion to exert his understanding . . . He generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.**" Here, in a few blunt words, is my critique of work. Bell, writing in 1956, the Golden Age of Eisenhower imbecility and American self-satisfaction, identified the unorganized, unorganizable malaise of the 1970's and since, the one no political tendency is able to hamess, the one identified in HEW's report _Work in America_, the one which cannot be exploited and so is ignored. **That problem is the revolt against work.** It does not figure in any text by any laissez-faire economistMilton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Richard Posnerbecause, in their terms, as they used to say on _Star Trek_, "[it does not compute][2]." + +If these objections, informed by the love of liberty, fail to persuade humanists of a utilitarian or even paternalist tum, there are others which they cannot disregard. **Work is hazardous to your health, to borrow a book title. In fact, work is mass murder or genocide. Directly or indirectly, work will kill most of the people who read these words. **Between 14,000 and 25,000 workers are killed annually in this country on the job. Over two million are disabled. Twenty to twenty-five million are injured every year. And these figures are based on a very conservative estimation of what constitutes a work-related injury. Thus they don't count the half million cases of occupational disease every year. I looked at one medical textbook on occuptional diseases which was 1,200 pages long. Even this barely scratches the surface. The available statistics count the obvious cases like the 100,000 miners who have black lung disease, of whom 4,000 die every year, a much higher fatality rate than for AIDS, for instance, which gets so much media attention. This reflects the unvoiced assumption that AIDS afflicts perverts who could control their depravity whereas coalmining is a sacrosanct activity beyond question. **What the statistics don't show is that tens of millions of people have their lifespans shortened by workwhich is all that homicide means, after all.** Consider the doctors who work themselves to death in their 50's. Consider all the other workaholics. + +**Even if you aren't killed or crippled while actually working, you very well might be while going to work, coming from work, looking for work, or trying to forget about work.** The vast majority of victims of the automobile are either doing one of these work-obligatory activities or else fall afoul of those who do them. To this augmented body-count must be added the victims of auto-industrial pollution and work-induced alcoholism and drug addiction. Both cancer and heart disease are modern afflictions normally traceable, directly or indirectly, to work. + +**Work, then, institutionalizes homicide as a way of life.** People think the Cambodians were crazy for exterminating themselves, but are we any different? The Pol Pot regime at least had a vision, however blurred, of an egalitarian society. **We kill people in the sixfigure range (at least) in order to sell Big Macs and Cadillacs to the survivors.** Our forty or fifty thousand annual highway fatalities are victims, not martyrs. They died for nothing \- or rather, they died for work. But work is nothing to die for. + +Bad news for liberals: regulatory tinkering is useless in this life-and-death context. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration was designed to police the core part of the problem, workplace safety. + +Even before [Reagan][3] and the Supreme Court stifled it, OSHA was a farce. At previous and (by current standards) generous Carter-era funding levels, a workplace could expect a random visit from an OSHA inspector once every 46 years. + +State control of the economy is no solution. Work is, if anything, more dangerous in the state-socialist countries than it is here. Thousands of Russian workers were killed or injured building the Moscow subway. **Stories reverberate about covered-up Soviet nuclear disasters which makes Times Beach and Three Mile Island look like elementary-school air-raid drills.** On the other hand, deregulation, currently fashionable, won't help and will probably hurt. From a health and safety standpoint, among others, work was its worst in the days when the economy most closely approximated laissez-faire. Historians like Eugene Genovese have argued persuasively thatas antebellum slavery apologists insistedfactory wage-workers in the Northern American states and in Europe were worse off than Southern plantation slaves. No rearrangement of relations among bureaucrats and businessmen seems to make much difference at the point of production. Serious enforcement of even the rather vague standards enforceable in theory by OSHA would probably bring the economy to a standstill. The enforcers apparently appreciate this, since they don't even try to crack down on most malefactors. + +What I've said so far ought not to be controversial. **Many workers are fed up with work.** There are high and rising rates of absenteeism, turnover, employee theft and sabotage, wildcat strikes, and overall goldbricking on the job. There may be some movement toward a conscious and not just visceral rejection of work. And yet the prevalent feeling, universal among bosses and their agents and also widespread among workers themselves is that work itself is inevitable and necessary. + +I disagree. **It is now possible to abolish work and replace it, insofar as it serves useful purposes, with a multitude of new kinds of activities.** To abolish work requires going at it from two directions, quantitative and qualitative. On the one hand, on the quantitative side, we have to cut down massively on the amount of work being done. At present most work is useless or worse and we should simply get rid of it. On the other hand \- and I think this the crux of the matter and the revolutionary new departurewe have to take what useful work remains and transform it into a pleasing variety of game-like and craft-like pastimes, indistinguishable from other pleasurable pastimes except that they happen to yield useful end-products. Surely that shouldn't make them _less_ enticing to do. **Then all the artificial barriers of power and property could come down. Creation could become recreation. And we could all stop being afraid of each other.** + +I don't suggest that most work is salvageable in this way. But then most work isn't worth trying to save. **Only a small and diminishing fraction of work serves any useful purpose independent of the defense and reproduction of the work-system and its political and legal appendages.** Twenty years ago, Paul and Percival Goodman estimated that just five per cent of the work then being donepresumably the figure, if accurate, is lower nowwould satisfy our minimal needs for food, clothing and shelter. Theirs was only an educated guess but the main point is quite clear: directly or indirectly, **most work serves the unproductive purposes of commerce or social control**. Right off the bat we can liberate tens of millions of salesmen, soldiers, managers, cops, stockbrockers, clergymen, bankers, lawyers, teachers, landlords, security guards, ad-men and everyone who works for them. There is a snowball effect since every time you idle some bigshot you liberate his flunkeys and underlings also. Thus the economy _implodes_. + +Forty per cent of the workforce are white-collar workers, most of whom have some of the most tedious and idiotic jobs ever concocted. Entire industries, insurance and banking and real estate for instance, consist of nothing but useless paper-shuffling. It is no accident that the "tertiary sector," the service sector, is growing while the "secondary sector" (industry stagnates and the "primary sector" (agriculture) nearly disappears. **Because work is unnecessary except to those whose power it secures, workers are shifted from relatively useful to relatively useless occupations as a measure to assure public order.** Anything is better than nothing. That's why you can't go home just because you finish early. They want your _time_, enough of it to make you theirs, even if they have no use for most of it. Otherwise why hasn't the average work week gone down by more than a few minutes in the last fifty years? + +Next we can take a meat-cleaver to production work itself. No more war production, nuclear power, junk food, feminine hygiene deodorantand above all, no more auto industry to speak of. An occasional Stanley Steamer or Model T might be all right, but the autoeroticism on which such pestholes as Detroit and Los Angeles depend is out of the question. Already, without even trying, we've virtually solved the energy crisis, the environmental crisis and assorted other insoluble social problems. + +Finally, we must do away with far and away the largest occupation, the one with the longest hours, the lowest pay and some of the most tedious tasks around. I refer to _housewives_ doing housework and childrearing. **By abolishing wage-labor and achieving full unemployment we undermine the sexual division of labor.** The nuclear family as we know it is an inevitable adaptation to the division of labor imposed by modern wage-work. Like it or not, as things have been for the last century or two it is economically rational for the man to bring home the bacon, for the woman to do the shitwork to provide him with a haven in a heartless world, **and for the children to be marched off to youth concentration campscalled "schools," primarily to keep them out of Mom's hair but still under control, but incidentally to acquire the habits of obedience and punctuality so necessary for workers**. If you would be rid of patriarchy, get rid of the nuclear family whose unpaid "shadow work," as Ivan Illich says, makes possible the work-system that makes _it_ necessary. Bound up with this no-nukes strategy is the abolition of childhood and the closing of the schools. There are more full-time students than full-time workers in this country. **We need children as teachers, not students.** They have a lot to contribute to the ludic revolution because they're better at playing than grown-ups are. Adults and children are not identical but they will become equal through interdependence. Only play can bridge the generation gap. + +I haven't as yet even mentioned the possibility of cutting way down on the little work that remains by automating and cybernizing it. All the scientists and engineers and technicians freed from bothering with war research and planned obsolescence should have a good time devising means to eliminate fatigue and tedium and danger from activities like mining. Undoubtedly they'll find other projects to amuse themselves with. Perhaps they'll set up world-wide all-inclusive multi-media communications systems or found space colonies. Perhaps. I myself am no gadget freak. I wouldn't care to live in a pushbutton paradise. I don't want robot slaves to do everything; I want to do things myself. There is, I think, a place for laborsaving technology, but a modest place. The historical and pre-historical record is not encouraging. **When productive technology went from hunting-gathering to agriculture and on to industry, work increased while skills and self-determination diminished.** The further evolution of industrialism has accentuated what Harry Braverman called the degradation of work. Intelligent observers have always been aware of this. John Stuart Mill wrote that all the labor-saving inventions ever devised haven't saved a moments labor. Karl Marx wrote that "**it would be possible to write a history of the inventions, made since 1830, for the sole purpose of supplying capital with weapons against the revolts of the working class.**" The enthusiastic technophilesSaint-Simon, Comte, Lenin, B.F. Skinnerhave always been unabashed authoritarians also; which is to say, technocrats. We should be more than skeptical about the promises of the computer mystics. _They_ work like dogs; chances are, if they have their way, so will the rest of us. But if they have any particularized contributions more readily subordinated to human purposes than the run of high tech, let's give them a hearing. + +**What I really want to see is work turned into play.** A first step is to discard the notions of a "job" and an "occupation." Even activities that already have some ludic content lose most of it by being reduced to jobs which certain people, and only those people, are forced to do to the exclusion of all else. Is it not odd that farm workers toil painfully in the fields while their airconditioned masters go home every weekend and putter about in their gardens? **Under a system of permanent revelry, we will witness the Golden Age of the dilettante which will put the Renaissance to shame. There won't be any more jobs, just things to do and people to do them.** + +The secret of turning work into play, as Charles Fourier demonstrated, is to arrange useful activities to take advantage of whatever it is that various people at various times in fact enjoy doing. To make it possible for some people to do the things they could enjoy it will be enough just to eradicate the irrationalities and distortions which afflict these activities when they are reduced to work. I, for instance, would enjoy doing some (not too much) teaching, but I don't want coerced students and I don't care to suck up to pathetic pedants for tenure. + +Second, there are some things that people like to do from time to time, but not for too long, and certainly not all the time. You might enjoy baby-sitting for a few hours in order to share the company of kids, but not as much as their parents do. The parents meanwhile profoundly appreciate the time to themselves that you free up for them, although they'd get fretful if parted from their progeny for too long. These differences among individuals are what make a life of free play possible. The same principle applies to many other areas of activity, especially the primal ones. Thus many people enjoy cooking when they can practice it seriously at their leisure, but not when they're just fueling up human bodies for work. + +Third,other things being equal,some things that are unsatisfying if done by yourself or in unpleasant surroundings or at the orders of an overlord are enjoyable, at least for awhile, if these circumstances are changed. This is probably true, to some extent, of all work. People deploy their otherwise wasted ingenuity to make a game of the least inviting drudge-jobs as best they can. Activities that appeal to some people don't always appeal to all others, but everyone at least potentially has a variety of interests and an interest in variety. As the saying goes, "anything once." Fourier was the master at speculating how aberrant and perverse penchants could be put to use in post-civilized society, what he called Harmony. **He thought the Emperor Nero would have turned out all right if as a child he could have indulged his taste for bloodshed by working in a slaughterhouse.** Small children who notoriously relish wallowing in filth could be organized in "Little Hordes" to clean toilets and empty the garbage, with medals awarded to the outstanding. I am not arguing for these precise examples but for the underlying principle, which I think makes perfect sense as one dimension of an overall revolutionary transformation. Bear in mind that we don't have to take today's work just as we find it and match it up with the proper people, some of whom would have to be perverse indeed. If technology has a role in all this it is less to automate work out of existence than to open up new realms for re/creation. To some extent we may want to return to handicrafts, which William Morris considered a probable and desirable upshot of communist revolution. Art would be taken back from the snobs and collectors, abolished as a specialized department catering to an elite audience, and its qualities of beauty and creation restored to integral life from which they were stolen by work. **It's a sobering thought that the Grecian urns we write odes about and showcase in museums were used in their own time to store olive oil. I doubt our everyday artifacts will fare as well in the future, if there is one.** The point is that there's no such thing as progress in the world of work; if anything it's just the opposite. We shouldn't hesitate to pilfer the past for what it has to offer, the ancients lose nothing yet we are enriched. + +**The reinvention of daily life means marching off the edge of our maps.** There is, it is true, more suggestive speculation than most people suspect. Besides Fourier and Morrisand even a hint, here and there, in Marxthere are the writings of Kropotkin, the syndicalists Pataud and Pouget, anarcho-communists old (Berkman) and new (Bookchin). The Goodman brothers' _Communitas_ is exemplary for illustrating what forms follow from given functions (purposes), and there is something to be gleaned from the often hazy heralds of alternative/appropriate/intermediate/convivial technology, like Schumacher and especially Illich, once you disconnect their fog machines. The situationistsas represented by Vaneigem's _Revolution of Everyday Life_ and in the _Situationist International Anthology_are so ruthlessly lucid as to be exhilarating, even if they never did quite square the endorsement of the rule of the workers' councils with the abolition of work. Better their incongruity, though, than any extant version of leftism, whose devotees look to be the last champions of work, for if there were no work there would be no workers, and without workers, who would the left have to organize? + +So the abolitionists would be largely on their own. **No one can say what would result from unleashing the creative power stultified by work. Anything can happen.** The tiresome debater's problem of freedom vs. necessity, with its theological overtones, resolves itself practically once the production of use-values is co-extensive with the consumption of delightful play activity. Life will become a game, or rather many games, but notas it is nowa zero/sum game. **An optimal sexual encounter is the paradigm of productive play.** The participants potentiate each other's pleasures, nobody keeps score, and everybody wins. **The more you give, the more you get.** In the ludic life, the best of sex will diffuse into the better part of daily life. Generalized play leads to the libidinization of life. Sex, in turn, can become less urgent and desperate, more playful. + +If we play our cards right, we can all get more out of life than we put into it; but only if we play for keeps. + +No one should ever work. + +Workers of the world. . . _relax!_ + +[Thought Crime][4] +[The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension][5] + +[1]: http://deoxy.org/gif/workfree.gif +[2]: audio/compute.au +[3]: pc.htm#raygun +[4]: tcrime.htm +[5]: http://deoxy.org diff --git a/the gospel of consumption.txt b/the gospel of consumption.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..af29053 --- /dev/null +++ b/the gospel of consumption.txt @@ -0,0 +1,101 @@ +--- +title: The Gospel of Consumption - Orion Magazine +date: 2014-12-18T20:09:15Z +source: https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-gospel-of-consumption/ +tags: #wub, life, economics + +--- + +PRIVATE CARS WERE RELATIVELY SCARCE in 1919 and horse-drawn conveyances were still common. In residential districts, electric streetlights had not yet replaced many of the old gaslights. And within the home, electricity remained largely a luxury item for the wealthy. + +Just ten years later things looked very different. Cars dominated the streets and most urban homes had electric lights, electric flat irons, and vacuum cleaners. In upper-middle-class houses, washing machines, refrigerators, toasters, curling irons, percolators, heating pads, and popcorn poppers were becoming commonplace. And although the first commercial radio station didn't begin broadcasting until 1920, the American public, with an adult population of about 122 million people, bought 4,438,000 radios in the year 1929 alone. + +But despite the apparent tidal wave of new consumer goods and what appeared to be a healthy appetite for their consumption among the well-to-do, industrialists were worried. They feared that the frugal habits maintained by most American families would be difficult to break. Perhaps even more threatening was the fact that the industrial capacity for turning out goods seemed to be increasing at a pace greater than people's sense that they needed them. + +It was this latter concern that led Charles Kettering, director of General Motors Research, to write a 1929 magazine article called "Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied." He wasn't suggesting that manufacturers produce shoddy products. Along with many of his corporate cohorts, he was defining a strategic shift for American industry — from fulfilling basic human needs to creating new ones. + +In a 1927 interview with the magazine _Nation's Business_, Secretary of Labor James J. Davis provided some numbers to illustrate a problem that the _New York Times_ called "need saturation." Davis noted that "the textile mills of this country can produce all the cloth needed in six months' operation each year" and that 14 percent of the American shoe factories could produce a year's supply of footwear. The magazine went on to suggest, "It may be that the world's needs ultimately will be produced by three days' work a week." + +Business leaders were less than enthusiastic about the prospect of a society no longer centered on the production of goods. For them, the new "labor-saving" machinery presented not a vision of liberation but a threat to their position at the center of power. John E. Edgerton, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, typified their response when he declared: "I am for everything that will make work happier but against everything that will further subordinate its importance. The emphasis should be put on work — more work and better work." "Nothing," he claimed, "breeds radicalism more than unhappiness unless it is leisure." + +By the late 1920s, America's business and political elite had found a way to defuse the dual threat of stagnating economic growth and a radicalized working class in what one industrial consultant called "the gospel of consumption" — the notion that people could be convinced that however much they have, it isn't enough. President Herbert Hoover's 1929 Committee on Recent Economic Changes observed in glowing terms the results: "By advertising and other promotional devices . . . a measurable pull on production has been created which releases capital otherwise tied up." They celebrated the conceptual breakthrough: "Economically we have a boundless field before us; that there are new wants which will make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied." + +Today "work and more work" is the accepted way of doing things. If anything, improvements to the labor-saving machinery since the 1920s have intensified the trend. Machines _can_ save labor, but only if they go idle when we possess enough of what they can produce. In other words, the machinery offers us an opportunity to work less, an opportunity that as a society we have chosen not to take. Instead, we have allowed the owners of those machines to define their purpose: not reduction of labor, but "higher productivity" — and with it the imperative to consume virtually everything that the machinery can possibly produce. + +FROM THE EARLIEST DAYS of the Age of Consumerism there were critics. One of the most influential was Arthur Dahlberg, whose 1932 book _Jobs, Machines, and Capitalism_ was well known to policymakers and elected officials in Washington. Dahlberg declared that "failure to shorten the length of the working day . . . is the primary cause of our rationing of opportunity, our excess industrial plant, our enormous wastes of competition, our high pressure advertising, [and] our economic imperialism." Since much of what industry produced was no longer aimed at satisfying human physical needs, a four-hour workday, he claimed, was necessary to prevent society from becoming disastrously materialistic. "By not shortening the working day when all the wood is in," he suggested, the profit motive becomes "both the creator and satisfier of spiritual needs." For when the profit motive can turn nowhere else, "it wraps our soap in pretty boxes and tries to convince us that that is solace to our souls." + +There was, for a time, a visionary alternative. In 1930 Kellogg Company, the world's leading producer of ready-to-eat cereal, announced that all of its nearly fifteen hundred workers would move from an eight-hour to a six-hour workday. Company president Lewis Brown and owner W. K. Kellogg noted that if the company ran "four six-hour shifts . . . instead of three eight-hour shifts, this will give work and paychecks to the heads of three hundred more families in Battle Creek." + +This was welcome news to workers at a time when the country was rapidly descending into the Great Depression. But as Benjamin Hunnicutt explains in his book _Kellogg's Six-Hour Day_, Brown and Kellogg wanted to do more than save jobs. They hoped to show that the "free exchange of goods, services, and labor in the free market would not have to mean mindless consumerism or eternal exploitation of people and natural resources." Instead "workers would be liberated by increasingly higher wages and shorter hours for the final freedom promised by the Declaration of Independence — the pursuit of happiness." + +To be sure, Kellogg did not intend to stop making a profit. But the company leaders argued that men and women would work more efficiently on shorter shifts, and with more people employed, the overall purchasing power of the community would increase, thus allowing for more purchases of goods, including cereals. + +A shorter workday did entail a cut in overall pay for workers. But Kellogg raised the hourly rate to partially offset the loss and provided for production bonuses to encourage people to work hard. The company eliminated time off for lunch, assuming that workers would rather work their shorter shift and leave as soon as possible. In a "personal letter" to employees, Brown pointed to the "mental income" of "the enjoyment of the surroundings of your home, the place you work, your neighbors, the other pleasures you have [that are] harder to translate into dollars and cents." Greater leisure, he hoped, would lead to "higher standards in school and civic . . . life" that would benefit the company by allowing it to "draw its workers from a community where good homes predominate." + +It was an attractive vision, and it worked. Not only did Kellogg prosper, but journalists from magazines such as _Forbes_ and _BusinessWeek_ reported that the great majority of company employees embraced the shorter workday. One reporter described "a lot of gardening and community beautification, athletics and hobbies . . . libraries well patronized and the mental background of these fortunate workers . . . becoming richer." + +A U.S. Department of Labor survey taken at the time, as well as interviews Hunnicutt conducted with former workers, confirm this picture. The government interviewers noted that "little dissatisfaction with lower earnings resulting from the decrease in hours was expressed, although in the majority of cases very real decreases had resulted." One man spoke of "more time at home with the family." Another remembered: "I could go home and have time to work in my garden." A woman noted that the six-hour shift allowed her husband to "be with 4 boys at ages it was important." + +Those extra hours away from work also enabled some people to accomplish things that they might never have been able to do otherwise. Hunnicutt describes how at the end of her interview an eighty-year-old woman began talking about ping-pong. "We'd get together. We had a ping-pong table and all my relatives would come for dinner and things and we'd all play ping-pong by the hour." Eventually she went on to win the state championship. + +Many women used the extra time for housework. But even then, they often chose work that drew in the entire family, such as canning. One recalled how canning food at home became "a family project" that "we all enjoyed," including her sons, who "opened up to talk freely." As Hunnicutt puts it, canning became the "medium for something more important than preserving food. Stories, jokes, teasing, quarreling, practical instruction, songs, griefs, and problems were shared. The modern discipline of alienated work was left behind for an older . . . more convivial kind of working together." + +This was the stuff of a human ecology in which thousands of small, almost invisible, interactions between family members, friends, and neighbors create an intricate structure that supports social life in much the same way as topsoil supports our biological existence. When we allow either one to become impoverished, whether out of greed or intemperance, we put our long-term survival at risk. + +Our modern predicament is a case in point. By 2005 per capita household spending (in inflation-adjusted dollars) was twelve times what it had been in 1929, while per capita spending for durable goods — the big stuff such as cars and appliances — was thirty-two times higher. Meanwhile, by 2000 the average married couple with children was working almost five hundred hours a year more than in 1979. And according to reports by the Federal Reserve Bank in 2004 and 2005, over 40 percent of American families spend more than they earn. The average household carries $18,654 in debt, not including home-mortgage debt, and the ratio of household debt to income is at record levels, having roughly doubled over the last two decades. We are quite literally working ourselves into a frenzy just so we can consume all that our machines can produce. + +Yet we could work and spend a lot less and still live quite comfortably. By 1991 the amount of goods and services produced for each hour of labor was double what it had been in 1948. By 2006 that figure had risen another 30 percent. In other words, if as a society we made a collective decision to get by on the amount we produced and consumed seventeen years ago, we could cut back from the standard forty-hour week to 5.3 hours per day — or 2.7 hours if we were willing to return to the 1948 level. We were already the richest country on the planet in 1948 and most of the world has not yet caught up to where we were then. + +Rather than realizing the enriched social life that Kellogg's vision offered us, we have impoverished our human communities with a form of materialism that leaves us in relative isolation from family, friends, and neighbors. We simply don't have time for them. Unlike our great-grandparents who passed the time, we spend it. An outside observer might conclude that we are in the grip of some strange curse, like a modern-day King Midas whose touch turns everything into a product built around a microchip. + +Of course not everybody has been able to take part in the buying spree on equal terms. Millions of Americans work long hours at poverty wages while many others can find no work at all. However, as advertisers well know, poverty does not render one immune to the gospel of consumption. + +Meanwhile, the influence of the gospel has spread far beyond the land of its origin. Most of the clothes, video players, furniture, toys, and other goods Americans buy today are made in distant countries, often by underpaid people working in sweatshop conditions. The raw material for many of those products comes from clearcutting or strip mining or other disastrous means of extraction. Here at home, business activity is centered on designing those products, financing their manufacture, marketing them — and counting the profits. + +KELLOGG'S VISION, DESPITE ITS POPULARITY with his employees, had little support among his fellow business leaders. But Dahlberg's book had a major influence on Senator (and future Supreme Court justice) Hugo Black who, in 1933, introduced legislation requiring a thirty-hour workweek. Although Roosevelt at first appeared to support Black's bill, he soon sided with the majority of businessmen who opposed it. Instead, Roosevelt went on to launch a series of policy initiatives that led to the forty-hour standard that we more or less observe today. + +By the time the Black bill came before Congress, the prophets of the gospel of consumption had been developing their tactics and techniques for at least a decade. However, as the Great Depression deepened, the public mood was uncertain, at best, about the proper role of the large corporation. Labor unions were gaining in both public support and legal legitimacy, and the Roosevelt administration, under its New Deal program, was implementing government regulation of industry on an unprecedented scale. Many corporate leaders saw the New Deal as a serious threat. James A. Emery, general counsel for the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), issued a "call to arms" against the "shackles of irrational regulation" and the "back-breaking burdens of taxation," characterizing the New Deal doctrines as "alien invaders of our national thought." + +In response, the industrial elite represented by NAM, including General Motors, the big steel companies, General Foods, DuPont, and others, decided to create their own propaganda. An internal NAM memo called for "re-selling all of the individual Joe Doakes on the advantages and benefits he enjoys under a competitive economy." NAM launched a massive public relations campaign it called the "American Way." As the minutes of a NAM meeting described it, the purpose of the campaign was to link "free enterprise in the public consciousness with free speech, free press and free religion as integral parts of democracy." + +Consumption was not only the linchpin of the campaign; it was also recast in political terms. A campaign booklet put out by the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency told readers that under "private capitalism, the _Consumer_, the _Citizen_ is boss," and "he doesn't have to wait for election day to vote or for the Court to convene before handing down his verdict. The consumer 'votes' each time he buys one article and rejects another." + +According to Edward Bernays, one of the founders of the field of public relations and a principal architect of the American Way, the choices available in the polling booth are akin to those at the department store; both should consist of a limited set of offerings that are carefully determined by what Bernays called an "invisible government" of public-relations experts and advertisers working on behalf of business leaders. Bernays claimed that in a "democratic society" we are and should be "governed, our minds . . . molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of." + +NAM formed a national network of groups to ensure that the booklet from J. Walter Thompson and similar material appeared in libraries and school curricula across the country. The campaign also placed favorable articles in newspapers (often citing "independent" scholars who were paid secretly) and created popular magazines and film shorts directed to children and adults with such titles as "Building Better Americans," "The Business of America's People Is Selling," and "America Marching On." + +Perhaps the biggest public relations success for the American Way campaign was the 1939 New York World's Fair. The fair's director of public relations called it "the greatest public relations program in industrial history," one that would battle what he called the "New Deal propaganda." The fair's motto was "Building the World of Tomorrow," and it was indeed a forum in which American corporations literally modeled the future they were determined to create. The most famous of the exhibits was General Motors' 35,000-square-foot Futurama, where visitors toured Democracity, a metropolis of multilane highways that took its citizens from their countryside homes to their jobs in the skyscraper-packed central city. + +For all of its intensity and spectacle, the campaign for the American Way did not create immediate, widespread, enthusiastic support for American corporations or the corporate vision of the future. But it did lay the ideological groundwork for changes that came after the Second World War, changes that established what is still commonly called our post-war society. + +The war had put people back to work in numbers that the New Deal had never approached, and there was considerable fear that unemployment would return when the war ended. Kellogg workers had been working forty-eight-hour weeks during the war and the majority of them were ready to return to a six-hour day and thirty-hour week. Most of them were able to do so, for a while. But W. K. Kellogg and Lewis Brown had turned the company over to new managers in 1937. + +The new managers saw only costs and no benefits to the six-hour day, and almost immediately after the end of the war they began a campaign to undermine shorter hours. Management offered workers a tempting set of financial incentives if they would accept an eight-hour day. Yet in a vote taken in 1946, 77 percent of the men and 87 percent of the women wanted to return to a thirty-hour week rather than a forty-hour one. In making that choice, they also chose a fairly dramatic drop in earnings from artificially high wartime levels. + +The company responded with a strategy of attrition, offering special deals on a department-by-department basis where eight hours had pockets of support, typically among highly skilled male workers. In the culture of a post-war, post-Depression U.S., that strategy was largely successful. But not everyone went along. Within Kellogg there was a substantial, albeit slowly dwindling group of people Hunnicutt calls the "mavericks," who resisted longer work hours. They clustered in a few departments that had managed to preserve the six-hour day until the company eliminated it once and for all in 1985. + +The mavericks rejected the claims made by the company, the union, and many of their co-workers that the extra money they could earn on an eight-hour shift was worth it. Despite the enormous difference in societal wealth between the 1930s and the 1980s, the language the mavericks used to explain their preference for a six-hour workday was almost identical to that used by Kellogg workers fifty years earlier. One woman, worried about the long hours worked by her son, said, "He has no time to live, to visit and spend time with his family, and to do the other things he really loves to do." + +Several people commented on the link between longer work hours and consumerism. One man said, "I was getting along real good, so there was no use in me working any more time than I had to." He added, "Everybody thought they were going to get rich when they got that eight-hour deal and it really didn't make a big difference. . . . Some went out and bought automobiles right quick and they didn't gain much on that because the car took the extra money they had." + +The mavericks, well aware that longer work hours meant fewer jobs, called those who wanted eight-hour shifts plus overtime "work hogs." "Kellogg's was laying off people," one woman commented, "while some of the men were working really fantastic amounts of overtime — that's just not fair." Another quoted the historian Arnold Toynbee, who said, "We will either share the work, or take care of people who don't have work." + +PEOPLE IN THE DEPRESSION-WRACKED 1930s, with what seems to us today to be a very low level of material goods, readily chose fewer work hours for the same reasons as some of their children and grandchildren did in the 1980s: to have more time for themselves and their families. We could, as a society, make a similar choice today. + +But we cannot do it as individuals. The mavericks at Kellogg held out against company and social pressure for years, but in the end the marketplace didn't offer them a choice to work less and consume less. The reason is simple: that choice is at odds with the foundations of the marketplace itself — at least as it is currently constructed. The men and women who masterminded the creation of the consumerist society understood that theirs was a political undertaking, and it will take a powerful political movement to change course today. + +Bernays's version of a "democratic society," in which political decisions are marketed to consumers, has many modern proponents. Consider a comment by Andrew Card, George W. Bush's former chief of staff. When asked why the administration waited several months before making its case for war against Iraq, Card replied, "You don't roll out a new product in August." And in 2004, one of the leading legal theorists in the United States, federal judge Richard Posner, declared that "representative democracy . . . involves a division between rulers and ruled," with the former being "a governing class," and the rest of us exercising a form of "consumer sovereignty" in the political sphere with "the power not to buy a particular product, a power to choose though not to create." + +Sometimes an even more blatant antidemocratic stance appears in the working papers of elite think tanks. One such example is the prominent Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington's 1975 contribution to a Trilateral Commission report on "The Crisis of Democracy." Huntington warns against an "excess of democracy," declaring that "a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and noninvolvement on the part of some individuals and groups." Huntington notes that "marginal social groups, as in the case of the blacks, are now becoming full participants in the political system" and thus present the "danger of overloading the political system" and undermining its authority. + +According to this elite view, the people are too unstable and ignorant for self-rule. "Commoners," who are viewed as factors of production at work and as consumers at home, must adhere to their proper roles in order to maintain social stability. Posner, for example, disparaged a proposal for a national day of deliberation as "a small but not trivial reduction in the amount of productive work." Thus he appears to be an ideological descendant of the business leader who warned that relaxing the imperative for "more work and better work" breeds "radicalism." + +As far back as 1835, Boston workingmen striking for shorter hours declared that they needed time away from work to be good citizens: "We have rights, and we have duties to perform as American citizens and members of society." As those workers well understood, any meaningful democracy requires citizens who are empowered to create and re-create their government, rather than a mass of marginalized voters who merely choose from what is offered by an "invisible" government. Citizenship requires a commitment of time and attention, a commitment people cannot make if they are lost to themselves in an ever-accelerating cycle of work and consumption. + +We can break that cycle by turning off our machines when they have created enough of what we need. Doing so will give us an opportunity to re-create the kind of healthy communities that were beginning to emerge with Kellogg's six-hour day, communities in which human welfare is the overriding concern rather than subservience to machines and those who own them. We can create a society where people have time to play together as well as work together, time to act politically in their common interests, and time even to argue over what those common interests might be. That fertile mix of human relationships is necessary for healthy human societies, which in turn are necessary for sustaining a healthy planet. + +If we want to save the Earth, we must also save ourselves from ourselves. We can start by sharing the work _and_ the wealth. We may just find that there is plenty of both to go around. + +_This article, along with other landmark _Orion_ essays about transformative action, are collected in a new anthology, _Change Everything Now_. Order your copy [here][1]._ + +[1]: http://www.orionmagazine.org/books diff --git a/the hidden wonders of the united states you need to visit.txt b/the hidden wonders of the united states you need to visit.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a3b3ba --- /dev/null +++ b/the hidden wonders of the united states you need to visit.txt @@ -0,0 +1,151 @@ +--- +title: The Hidden Wonders Of The United States You Need To Visit +date: 2015-04-12T02:25:08Z +source: http://all-that-is-interesting.com/hidden-wonders#23 +tags: luxagraf, travel + +--- + +The Black Hills + +![Black Hills American Wonders][1] + +Native Americans have inhabited the Black Hills of South Dakota since at least 7000 BC. The hills were the site of gold mining and as you might guess, numerous battles between the government and Native Americans. Today, they are an annual gathering place for over 550,000 bikers. Source: [Matador Network][2] + +The Black Hills + +The Black Hills landscape is incredibly complex as well, featuring craggy rocks, grasslands and wet valleys. The environment is home to a wide array of animals, including buffalo, mountain lions and Bighorn Sheep. Source: [Matador Network][2] + +Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge + +Migratory birds have a friend in Delaware at the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge. Established in 1937, the 15,978-acre tidal marsh is one of the largest and most pristine expanses in the Mid-Atlantic region. Source: [Stephen L Tabone Nature Photography][3] + +Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge + +As high-quality habitats along the Atlantic Flyaway disappear, Bombay Hook has become increasingly important as a stop for migratory birds that travel north to their breeding grounds. Source: [Stephen L Tabone Nature Photography][3] + +Carlsbad Caverns + +Tucked in the Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico is Carlsbad Caverns National Park, where caverns are king. The park contains 119 limestone caves that were carved out by sulfuric acid. Source: [Matador Network][2] + +Carlsbad Caverns + +The caverns were once a part of a primordial sea that existed 250 million years ago. Bones from ice age animals like giant sloths, lions and camels have been found around the entrances to the caves. Source: [Weird World Facts][4] + +Death Valley + +Though Death Valley is the driest and hottest area in North America, it actually sits over one of the world's largest aquifers. The valley's oldest rocks are over 1.7 billion years old. Source: [Matador Network][2] + +Death Valley + +Death Valley is also known for Racetrack Playa, where rocks seem to move without any intervention from humans or animals. Scientists recently discovered that the rocks don't use magic to move, but rather slide across thin sheets of ice that are pushed by wind whipping through the valley. Source: [Matador Network][2] + +Dinosaur Valley State Park + +Just outside of Fort Worth, Texas is a place where you can actually walk in the footsteps of dinosaurs. Dinosaur Valley State Park actually has fossilized dino prints along the Paluxy River that runs through the park. Source: [Dinosaur Valley State Park][5] + +Dinosaur Valley State Park + +Hiking trails take you back through time on rugged and steep pathways, but at least you're not running from a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Source: [Dinosaur Valley State Park][6] + +Hocking Hills State Park + +Picturesque waterfalls and rocky outcroppings aren't normally associated with Ohio, but they're definitely there. Hocking Hills State Park houses unique geographical features. Source: [Business Insider][7] + +Hocking Hills State Park + +Formed by glacial torrents, the park's rock formations also include deep gorges, a rock shelter and a "devil's bathtub," which is a cool way to describe a creepy hole with water in it. Source: [Bourbon Ridge Retreat][8] + +The Horicon Marsh + +The largest freshwater cattail marsh isn't in Florida or Louisiana, it's actually in Wisconsin. The Horicon Marsh is an important habitat for redheaded ducks, Canadian geese and great blue herons. Over 268 different species of birds have been sighted in the area. Source: [Adkotin][9] + +The Horicon Marsh + +The marshland remained unchanged until the arrival of European settlers, who modified it through draining and hunting. However, after it was deemed a wildlife refuge in 1927, water levels returned and it's once again wild. Source: [Birding is Fun][10] + +Craighead Caverns + +The United States' largest non-subglacial underground lake is located outside of the small town of Sweetwater, Tennessee. The lake is part of an extensive cave system called Craighead Caverns. Source: [Travel Mindset][11] + +Craighead Caverns + +Explorers have mapped 13 acres of water and discovered more cavernous rooms beneath the lake. The Lost Sea is marked by "cave flowers," a rare phenomena that worked to have lake named as a National Landmark. Source: [Lake Scientist][12] + +The Monument Rocks + +These beautiful rock formations aren't in the desert of Arizona, but rather in Kansas, in the middle of grassland. Oh, and they're made out of chalk. Source: [Tourist Destinations][13] + +The Monument Rocks + +The Monument Rocks also have the accolades of being named the first national natural landmark by the Department of the Interior. They rise up 70 feet and are estimated to have been formed 80 million years ago. The formations are important shelters for birds, particularly the American kestrel who hunts across the prairie. Source: [Nature's Arches and Bridges][14] + +Mount Desert Island + +Mount Desert Island looms over the water like a mountain, which is how it got its name. The island only has 10,000 year round residents, but visitors come to see Acadia National Park, which is located on the island. Source: [Matador Network][2] + +Acadia National Park + +The island dates back 550 million years ago when it was just a sea-floor mud deposit, created by volcanic ash. Eventually, the island rose and glaciers eroded its landscape, as visible in the extremely rocky landscape. Source: [Matador Network][2] + +Northern Lights, Alaska + +Alaska is one of the best spots on the planet to see the Northern Lights or the Aurora Borealis. Caused by solar winds, the aurora looks like a rainbow doing yoga as it moves across the sky. Source: [National Geographic][15] + +Northern Lights, Alaska + +The Northern Lights are best observed in the winter when it's darkest in Alaska. The displays take place 60 to 70 miles above the Earth, higher than a plane flies. Source: [National Geographic][16] + +The Okefenokee Swamp + +The Okefenokee Swamp covers 700 square miles in southeastern Georgia and northern Florida. The name comes from the Hitchiti Creek language meaning "Waters Shaking." Source: [Luxagraf][17] + +The Okefenokee Swamp + +The shaking waters could come from the sound of the male alligator as it bellows throughout the swamp. Be prepared for awesome paddling treks through 120 miles of swamp trail, just don't fall in. Source: [Luxagraf][17] + +Painted Hills, Oregon + +One of Oregon's 7 natural wonders are the painted hills near the town of Mitchell. Millions of years of history are exposed in the layered hills of the area like geological water painting. Source: [Love These Pics][18] + +Painted Hills, Oregon + +Many ancient fossils have been discovered in the area, including early horses, camels and rhinos. The red coloring of the formations is due to laterite that was created by floodplain deposits. Source: [Love These Pics][18] + +Palouse Falls + +Washington's Palouse Falls consists of upper falls at a drop of about 20 feet, which lead to the main drop and lower falls around 180 feet high. Rock benches, plunge pools and potholes have imprinted the surrounding landscape. Source: [Matador Network][2] + +Palouse Falls + +Kayaker Tyler Bradt ran the falls setting an unofficial world record for highest waterfall run. Lacking that kind of bravery, most of us just enjoy the pristine beauty of the locale. Source: [Reddit][19] + +Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore + +Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore runs nearly 40 rocky and sandy miles along the Lake Superior shoreline in Michigan. The colorful cliffs have been naturally sculpted into caves, peaks and arches. Source: [Random Space][20] + +Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore + +The colors of the painted rocks come from the large amount of minerals in them. The area contains most of Michigan's waterfalls and makes for great recreational activity or even video production. In 2010, Kid Rock filmed the video for his song Born Free at the lakeshore. If he knows about it, you should too! Source: [Random Space][21] + +[1]: http://all-that-is-interesting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/hidden_wonders_black_hills.jpg +[2]: http://matadornetwork.com/ +[3]: http://stevetaboneblog.com/page/13/ +[4]: http://www.weirdworldfacts.com/ +[5]: http://tpwd.texas.gov/ +[6]: http://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/dinosaur-valley +[7]: http://www.businessinsider.com/ +[8]: http://bourbonridgeretreat.com/ +[9]: https://adkotin.wordpress.com/ +[10]: http://www.birdingisfun.com/ +[11]: http://www.travelmindset.com +[12]: http://www.lakescientist.com/ +[13]: http://www.tourist-destinations.com/ +[14]: http://arches.marbleart.us/ +[15]: http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/ +[16]: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2011/entries/80665/view/ +[17]: https://luxagraf.net/ +[18]: http://www.lovethesepics.com/ +[19]: http://www.reddit.com/ +[20]: http://www-personal.umich.edu +[21]: http://www-personal.umich.edu/ diff --git a/the obituary project.txt b/the obituary project.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..359859e --- /dev/null +++ b/the obituary project.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +The Obituary Project + +Telling the tale of a small California town (seaside fictions 1930-present) through the obituary pages of the local newspaper. Start on blogspot and post every day eventually move to something else and leave that up while publishing the finished project on amazon singles.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/the plan.txt b/the plan.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..6bece1a --- /dev/null +++ b/the plan.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +The Plan + +For the next four years we save. We rent out the house. We put our things in storage, we learn spanish. Really learn spanish. Then we catch a bus south. We have no return date. Open ended travel, here to go.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/the secrets of the world's happiest cities.txt b/the secrets of the world's happiest cities.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..4a8b3f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/the secrets of the world's happiest cities.txt @@ -0,0 +1,101 @@ +The secrets of the world's happiest cities | Society | The Guardian + +tags: refx, life +date: November 18, 2013 10:15:13 AM +--- + +From <http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/01/secrets-worlds-happiest-cities-commute-property-prices> + +# The secrets of the world's happiest cities + +November 2, 2013 + + + +'City life is as much about moving through landscapes as it is about being in them.' Illustration: Francesco Bongiorni for the Guardian + +Two bodyguards trotted behind [Enrique Peñalosa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrique_Pe%C3%B1alosa), their pistols jostling in holsters. There was nothing remarkable about that, given his profession – and his locale. Peñalosa was a politician on yet another campaign, and this was Bogotá, a city with a reputation for kidnapping and assassination. What was unusual was this: Peñalosa didn't climb into the armoured SUV. Instead, he hopped on a mountain bike. His bodyguards and I pedalled madly behind, like a throng of teenagers in the wake of a rock star. + + + +A few years earlier, this ride would have been a radical and – in the opinion of many Bogotáns – suicidal act. If you wanted to be assaulted, asphyxiated by exhaust fumes or run over, the city's streets were the place to be. But Peñalosa insisted that things had changed. "We're living an experiment," he yelled back at me. "We might not be able to fix the economy. But we can design the city to give people dignity, to make them feel rich. The city can make them happier." + +I first saw the Mayor of Happiness work his rhetorical magic back in the spring of 2006. The United Nations had just announced that some day in the following months, one more child would be born in an urban hospital or a migrant would stumble into a metropolitan shantytown, and from that moment on, more than half the world's people would be living in cities. By 2030, almost 5 billion of us will be urban. + +Peñalosa insisted that, like most cities, Bogotá had been left deeply wounded by the 20th century's dual urban legacy: first, the city had been gradually reoriented around cars. Second, public spaces and resources had largely been privatised. This reorganisation was both unfair – only one in five families even owned a car – and cruel: urban residents had been denied the opportunity to enjoy the city's simplest daily pleasures: walking on convivial streets, sitting around in public. And playing: children had largely disappeared from Bogotá's streets, not because of the fear of gunfire or abduction, but because the streets had been rendered dangerous by sheer speed. Peñalosa's first and most defining act as mayor was to declare war: not on crime or drugs or poverty, but on cars. + +He threw out the ambitious highway expansion plan and instead poured his budget into hundreds of miles of cycle paths; a vast new chain of parks and pedestrian plazas; and the city's first rapid transit system ([the TransMilenio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransMilenio)), using buses instead of trains. He banned drivers from commuting by car more than three times a week. This programme redesigned the experience of city living for millions of people, and it was an utter rejection of the philosophies that have guided city planners around the world for more than half a century. + +In the third year of his term, Peñalosa challenged Bogotáns to participate in an experiment. As of dawn on 24 February 2000, cars were banned from streets for the day. It was the first day in four years that nobody was killed in traffic. Hospital admissions fell by almost a third. The toxic haze over the city thinned. People told pollsters that they were more optimistic about city life than they had been in years. + + + +Colombian students ride their bicycles during 'No car day' in Bogota. The day-long ban on all private car traffic on the city's streets forces residents to use public transportation or bicycles to get to and from work. Photograph: Jose Miguel Gomez/Reuters + +One memory from early in the journey has stuck with me, perhaps because it carries both the sweetness and the subjective slipperiness of the happiness we sometimes find in cities. Peñalosa, who was running for re-election, needed to be seen out on his bicycle that day. He hollered _"Cómo le va?"_ ("How's it going?") at anyone who appeared to recognise him. But this did not explain his haste or his quickening pace as we traversed the north end of the city towards the Andean foothills. It was all I could do to keep up with him, block after block, until we arrived at a compound ringed by a high iron fence. + +Boys in crisp white shirts and matching uniforms poured through a gate. One of them, a bright-eyed 10-year-old, pushed a miniature version of Peñalosa's bicycle through the crowd. Suddenly I understood his haste. He had been rushing to pick up his son from school, like other parents were doing that very moment up and down the time zone. Here, in the heart of one of the meanest, poorest cities in the hemisphere, father and son would roll away from the school gate for a carefree ride across the metropolis. This was an unthinkable act in most modern cities. As the sun fell and the Andes caught fire, we arced our way along the wide-open avenues, then west along a highway built for bicycles. The kid raced ahead. At that point, I wasn't sure about Peñalosa's ideology. Who was to say that one way of moving was better than another? How could anyone know enough about the needs of the human soul to prescribe the ideal city for happiness? + +But for a moment I forgot my questions. I let go of my handlebars and raised my arms in the air of the cooling breeze, and I remembered my own childhood of country roads, after-school wanderings, lazy rides and pure freedom. I felt fine. The city was mine. The journey began. + +Is urban design really powerful enough to make or break happiness? The question deserves consideration, because the happy city message is taking root around the world. "The most dynamic economies of the 20th century produced the most miserable cities of all," Peñalosa told me over the roar of traffic. "I'm talking about the US Atlanta, Phoenix, Miami, cities totally dominated by cars." + + + +Red Transmilenio buses pull into the Museum of Gold station in front of the 16th century Iglesia de San Francisco, Bogota's oldest restored church. Photograph: John Coletti/Getty Images + +If one was to judge by sheer wealth, the last half-century should have been an ecstatically happy time for people in the US and other rich nations such as Canada, Japan and Great Britain. And yet the boom decades of the late 20th century were not accompanied by a boom in wellbeing. The British got richer by more than 40% between 1993 and 2012, but the rate of psychiatric disorders and neuroses grew. + +Just before the crash of 2008, a team of Italian economists, led by Stefano Bartolini, tried to account for that seemingly inexplicable gap between rising income and flatlining happiness in the US. The Italians tried removing various components of economic and social data from their models, and found that the only factor powerful enough to hold down people's self-reported happiness in the face of all that wealth was the country's declining social capital: the social networks and interactions that keep us connected with others. It was even more corrosive than the income gap between rich and poor. + +As much as we complain about other people, there is nothing worse for mental health than a social desert. The more connected we are to family and community, the less likely we are to experience heart attacks, strokes, cancer and depression. Connected people sleep better at night. They live longer. They consistently report being happier. + +There is a clear connection between social deficit and the shape of cities. A [Swedish study](http://www.samfak.umu.se/english/about-the-faculty/news/newsdetailpage/long-distance-commuters-get-divorced-more-often.cid160978) found that people who endure more than a 45-minute commute were 40% more likely to divorce. People who live in monofunctional, car‑dependent neighbourhoods outside urban centres are much less trusting of other people than people who live in walkable neighbourhoods where housing is mixed with shops, services and places to work. + +A couple of University of Zurich economists, Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer, compared German commuters' estimation of the time it took them to get to work with their answers to the standard wellbeing question, "How satisfied are you with your life, all things considered?" + +Their finding was seemingly straightforward: the longer the drive, the less happy people were. Before you dismiss this as numbingly obvious, keep in mind that they were testing not for drive satisfaction, but for life satisfaction. People were choosing commutes that made their entire lives worse. [Stutzer and Frey](http://ideas.repec.org/p/zur/iewwpx/151.html) found that a person with a one-hour commute has to earn 40% more money to be as satisfied with life as someone who walks to the office. On the other hand, for a single person, exchanging a long commute for a short walk to work has the same effect on happiness as finding a new love. + +[Daniel Gilbert](http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dtg/gilbert.htm), Harvard psychologist and author of [Stumbling On Happiness](http://www.guardianbookshop.co.uk/BerteShopWeb/viewProduct.do?ISBN=9780007183135), explained the commuting paradox this way: "Most good and bad things become less good and bad over time as we adapt to them. However, it is much easier to adapt to things that stay constant than to things that change. So we adapt quickly to the joy of a larger house, because the house is exactly the same size every time. But we find it difficult to adapt to commuting by car, because every day is a slightly new form of misery." + +The sad part is that the more we flock to high‑status cities for the good life – money, opportunity, novelty – the more crowded, expensive, polluted and congested those places become. The result? Surveys show that [Londoners are among the least happy people in the UK](http://www.govtoday.co.uk/health/44-public-health/11410-london-least-happy-in-the-uk), despite the city being the richest region in the UK. + + + +For a single person, exchanging a long commute for a short walk to work has the same effect on happiness as finding a new love. Illustration: Francesco Bongiorni for the Guardian + +When we talk about cities, we usually end up talking about how various places look, and perhaps how it feels to be there. But to stop there misses half the story, because the way we experience most parts of cities is at velocity: we glide past on the way to somewhere else. City life is as much about moving through landscapes as it is about being in them. Robert Judge, a 48-year-old husband and father, once wrote to a Canadian radio show explaining how much he enjoyed going grocery shopping on his bicycle. Judge's confession would have been unremarkable if he did not happen to live in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where the average temperature in January hovers around -17C. The city stays frozen and snowy for almost half the year. Judge's pleasure in an experience that seems slower, more difficult and considerably more uncomfortable than the alternative might seem bizarre. He explained it by way of a story: sometimes, he said, he would pick up his three-year-old son from nursery and put him on the back seat of his tandem bike and they would pedal home along the South Saskatchewan river. The snow would muffle the noise of the city. Dusk would paint the sky in colours so exquisite that Judge could not begin to find names for them. The snow would reflect those hues. It would glow like the sky, and Judge would breathe in the cold air and hear his son breathing behind him, and he would feel as though together they had become part of winter itself. + +Drivers experience plenty of emotional dividends. They report feeling much more in charge of their lives than public transport users. An upmarket vehicle is loaded with symbolic value that offers a powerful, if temporary, boost in status. Yet despite these romantic feelings, half of commuters living in big cities and suburbs claim to dislike the heroic journey they must make every day. The urban system neutralises their power. + +Driving in traffic is harrowing for both brain and body. The blood of people who drive in cities is a stew of stress hormones. The worse the traffic, the more your system is flooded with adrenaline and cortisol, the fight-or-flight juices that, in the short-term, get your heart pumping faster, dilate your air passages and help sharpen your alertness, but in the long-term can make you ill. Researchers for Hewlett-Packard [convinced volunteers in England to wear electrode caps during their commutes](http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/nov/30/research.transport) and found that whether they were driving or taking the train, peak-hour travellers suffered worse stress than fighter pilots or riot police facing mobs of angry protesters. + +But one group of commuters report enjoying themselves. These are people who travel under their own steam, like Robert Judge. They walk. They run. They ride bicycles. + +Why would travelling more slowly and using more effort offer more satisfaction than driving? Part of the answer exists in basic human physiology. We were born to move. Immobility is to the human body what rust is to the classic car. Stop moving long enough, and your muscles will atrophy. Bones will weaken. Blood will clot. You will find it harder to concentrate and solve problems. Immobility is not merely a state closer to death: it hastens it. + +[Robert Thayer, a professor of psychology at California State University, fitted dozens of students with pedometers](http://www.csulb.edu/misc/inside/archives/vol_58_no_4/1.htm), then sent them back to their regular lives. Over the course of 20 days, the volunteers answered survey questions about their moods, attitudes, diet and happiness. Within that volunteer group, people who walked more were happier. + +The same is true of cycling, although a bicycle has the added benefit of giving even a lazy rider the ability to travel three or four times faster than someone walking, while using less than a quarter of the energy. They may not all attain Judge's level of transcendence, but cyclists report feeling connected to the world around them in a way that is simply not possible in the sealed environment of a car, bus or train. Their journeys are both sensual and kinesthetic. + +In 1969, a consortium of European industrial interests charged a young American economist, [Eric Britton](http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/author/worldstreets/), with figuring out how people would move through cities in the future. Cities should strive to embrace complexity, not only in transportation systems but in human experience, says Britton, who is still working in that field and lives in Paris. He advises cities and corporations to abandon old mobility, a system rigidly organised entirely around one way of moving, and embrace new mobility, a future in which we would all be free to move in the greatest variety of ways. + +"We all know old mobility," Britton said. "It's you sitting in your car, stuck in traffic. It's you driving around for hours, searching for a parking spot. Old mobility is also the 55-year-old woman with a bad leg, waiting in the rain for a bus that she can't be certain will come. New mobility, on the other hand, is freedom distilled." + +A row of Velib rental bicycles are parked at the rue de La Harpe in Paris. Dozens of cities have now dabbled in shared bike programmes, including London, Montreal, Melbourne and New York Photograph: Horacio Villalobos/EPA + +To demonstrate how radically urban systems can build freedom in motion, Britton led me down from his office, out on to Rue Joseph Bara. We paused by a row of sturdy-looking bicycles. Britton swept his wallet above a metallic post and pulled one free from its berth. "_Et voilà!_ Freedom!" he said, grinning. Since the Paris bike scheme, [Vélib'](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/aug/16/ethicalliving.france), was introduced, it has utterly changed the face of mobility. Each bicycle in the Vélib' fleet gets used between three and nine times every day. That's as many as 200,000 trips a day. Dozens of cities have now dabbled in shared bike programmes, including Lyon, Montreal, Melbourne, New York. In 2010, London introduced a system, dubbed Boris Bikes for the city's bike-mad mayor, Boris Johnson. In Paris, and around the world, new systems of sharing are setting drivers free. As more people took to bicycles in Vélib's first year, the number of bike accidents rose, but the number of accidents per capita fell. This phenomenon seems to repeat wherever cities see a spike in cycling: the more people bike, the safer the streets become for cyclists, partly because drivers adopt more cautious habits when they expect cyclists on the road. There is safety in numbers. + +So if we really care about freedom for everyone, we need to design for everyone, not only the brave. Anyone who is really serious about building freedom in their cities eventually makes the pilgrimage to Copenhagen. I joined Copenhagen rush hour on a September morning with Lasse Lindholm, an employee of the city's traffic department. The sun was burning through the autumn haze as we made our way across Queen Louise's Bridge. Vapour rose from the lake, swans drifted and preened, and the bridge seethed with a rush-hour scene like none I have ever witnessed. With each light change, cyclists rolled toward us in their hundreds. They did not look the way cyclists are supposed to look. They did not wear helmets or reflective gear. Some of the men wore pinstriped suits. No one was breaking a sweat. + +Lindholm rolled off a list of statistics: more people that morning would travel by bicycle than by any other mode of transport (37%). If you didn't count the suburbs, the percentage of cyclists in Copenhagen would hit 55%. They aren't choosing to cycle because of any deep-seated altruism or commitment to the environment; they are motivated by self-interest. "They just want to get themselves from A to B," Lindholm said, "and it happens to be easier and quicker to do it on a bike." + +The Bogotá experiment may not have made up for all the city's grinding inequities, but it was a spectacular beginning and, to the surprise of many, it made life better for almost everyone. + +The TransMilenio moved so many people so efficiently that car drivers crossed the city faster as well: commuting times fell by a fifth. The streets were calmer. By the end of Peñalosa's term, people were crashing their cars less often and killing each other less frequently, too: the accident rate fell by nearly half, and so did the murder rate, even as the country as a whole got more violent. There was a massive improvement in air quality, too. Bogotáns got healthier. The city experienced a spike in feelings of optimism. People believed that life was good and getting better, a feeling they had not shared in decades. + +Bogotá's fortunes have since declined. The TransMilenio system is plagued by desperate crowding as its private operators fail to add more capacity – yet more proof that robust public transport needs sustained public investment. Optimism has withered. But Bogotá's transformative years still offer an enduring lesson for rich cities. By spending resources and designing cities in a way that values everyone's experience, we can make cities that help us all get stronger, more resilient, more connected, more active and more free. We just have to decide who our cities are for. And we have to believe that they can change. + +• This is an edited extract from Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, by Charles Montgomery, published by Penguin at £16.99. + +• This article was edited on 4 November 2013, to make clear that it is an edited extract. diff --git a/things i have learned.txt b/things i have learned.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..33d866c --- /dev/null +++ b/things i have learned.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +Things I Have Learned + +things I have learned + +1) do not buy a king bed, a queen is big enough any more creates a psycological distance between you and your bed partner. + +2) nature prizes the elegant over the practical -- hummingbird beaks, TK, TK TK. Do likewise. Practicality is almost always a hack. The best solutions are those that are practical and elegant. + +3) Do not be realistic. There is no faster path to mediocrity. To walk in a room, flip a swtich and have light was totally unrealistic for millions of years and then Thomas Edison decided to do something that wasn't realistic. + +4) do not be afraid to die + +5) "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." - Albert Eistein + +6) Memory is a big goddamn mess. It'd be much easier if it was like a record player, you could just pick up the needle and drop it on the best parts of your life to play over, the way you used to know exactly which record groove signaled the beginning of TK's TK. + +7) Lightweight freaks will tell you to leave the towel at home. That's utter nonsense, everyone knows a towel is "about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have," and furthermore, "any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with." Always travel with a towel.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/thts.txt b/thts.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..d8b6bc6 --- /dev/null +++ b/thts.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +Mon 2014-04-14 22:29 The history of man is such that yes, we were hunter-gatherer's for much longer than we have been farmers, but obviously there have in the history of the world been many more farmers than hunter-gatherers. +so we tend to see the farming-based cultures like our own as more successful, but really that's only in terms of pure numbers. And I wonder, is it such a good thing to have so many of us on the planet? Have we really been successful or just numerous? Of course it's a purely academic question since we are where we are and there's no going back, but I think that part of the fascination with disaster movies and the idea of a collapse of civilization that pervades so much of late 19th century on literature, film and art is that (perhaps unconscious) suspicion that perhaps we were better off in small bands, as hunter gatherers, since at this point the only path we have to return to such a culture is a disaster scenario. + +Tue 2014-04-15 21:37 Really like Epictetus' idea from a mock conversation with Zeus that Zeus, which for Epictetus appears to have been more like a generic conception of nature or life or the world, was hobbled in his ability to create. +That man though was given "a certain portion of ourself, this faculty of choice and refusal of desire and aversion." And that if we can learn to use this he will never feel frustrated or dissatisfied. That's nice, but I especially like the idea of worldview in which the forces creating us, which in our day and age might be more like evolutionary forces or maybe even the microbiology of our guts -- which is perhaps foreign enough, as in literally foreign bacteria, such as to be sketched as a kind of external god-like force -- is inherently flawed, as given us only half the message so to speak and that part of our reason for existence, part of our task in living is perhaps to piece together that missing bit. + +I can also see rejecting that notion that we are missing something though. Perhaps we just have half the information and that's all we need. I believe DNA can replicate itself from less than complete strands -- do we need, in this metaphor, all the information of Zeus or can we get by with what we have? diff --git a/transitional-objects.txt b/transitional-objects.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3aa0fea --- /dev/null +++ b/transitional-objects.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +Postby Ego » Sun May 31, 2015 9:36 am + +From a very early age we've been conditioned to comfort our fears with objects. Notice how those who are most rattled by SHTF scenarios are also those who believe their possessions will help them make the transition (transitional objects) to a post SHTF world. + +http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_object + +Those who have survived true catastrophic crashes in the real world have shed most of their possessions to change, move and adapt. Those who hunker down to ride out the storm do not fare well. + +A big house on fifty acres makes us feel strong precisely because it is the adult version of a teddy bear or security blanket. In the modern world there are a surprising number of things that give us that same feeling of power and invincibility but actually make us weak and vulnerable. Culturally we place a high value on this facade of feelings. In doing so we discount the value of reality. diff --git a/travel notes goa.txt b/travel notes goa.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..4844a19 --- /dev/null +++ b/travel notes goa.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +Travel Notes- Goa + +Addy's restaurant + +Fish Chootuporichathu baked/fried in a banana leaf, 226 year old dutch home converted to a restaurant.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/travel quote.txt b/travel quote.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..c1434b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/travel quote.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +"I wish travel in the widespread recommendation sense was understood and in a wider or more metaphorical sense. Try out new things. Different ways of living. Associating with different socioeconomic classes. Different kinds of works. Different faiths. Different politics. Different ways of providing for yourself. Testing boundaries." + +"I think travel often turns into an exercise of buying an airline ticket to some other country only to do more of the middle class activities one is already familiar with from one's home country---worse if one is only doing leisure activities, which is like 10% of the native experience. The only difference between that and staying at home is that one's first language becomes everybody else's second language." + +source: <http://forum.earlyretirementextreme.com/viewtopic.php?t=5252&p=75455#p75455>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/twain on rivers, seas.txt b/twain on rivers, seas.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..94c7b6b --- /dev/null +++ b/twain on rivers, seas.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +twain on rivers, seas + +"Mark Twain’s tale is one of the great depictions of discovery through travel. The power of this depiction comes not just from Twain’s storytelling skill, but from the element he chooses to give structure to the story: the river, which conveys Huck and Jim through one scene of adventure after another. T. S. Eliot found this device so powerful that he dubbed it “the River God,” claiming that “a river, a very big and powerful river, is the only force that can wholly determine the course of human peregrination.” For Huck and Jim, this determination of their course becomes a source of hope, of the possibility of escape from their wretched lives: for Jim, it is a hope for freedom from the miseries of slavery, and for Huck, from his life under a poor, abusive father. And they hope not just to escape their old lives but to find new ones — a broader moral hope that can be felt by the readers who enter imaginatively into the story, who come to apprehend this possibility for discovery and renewal in themselves." + +I like the idea of Elliots, that "a very big and powerful river, is the only force that can wholly determine the course of human peregrination" but I like it more when applied to the sea. + +http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/gps-and-the-end-of-the-road + +"Seen in the right way, what the two novels show us is not the virtue of quitting civilization, but the freedom that comes from finding our own way through a world that is not of our own making — and with it, a glimpse of the possibility of reaching out beyond our everyday selves into something greater. And the progression from Huck Finn to On the Road suggests that the advance of technology and civilization need not spell the end of this possibility, but just the shift of its scenes."
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un bk3 arriving at ambroses motel.txt b/un bk3 arriving at ambroses motel.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..5ef1af8 --- /dev/null +++ b/un bk3 arriving at ambroses motel.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +bk3-Arriving at Ambroses motel + +Dust and gravel crunched under the rubber ballon tires and creaking struts, axle's clanging the Faulknerian automobile lurched to a half and from what Ambrose could tell had no designs of further movement now or forever more. But he did dutifully as always arise from the saggin posture that Munsen found so distasteful and not so much walk as amble acorss the heat shimmering driveway to the gas pumbp where the decrepid vehicle and its occupants sat patiently sweating. + diff --git a/un bk3 grandmas stories.txt b/un bk3 grandmas stories.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..a50f3f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/un bk3 grandmas stories.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +bk3-Grandmas stories + +My grandmother lived in Abilene TX and was working as a switchboard operator when Pearl Harbor was bombed. She made $26/month, which she says was good money for those days. She lived ten miles from the army base and on Dec 7, 1941 the switchboard lit up, red lights everywhere (red lights were pay phones). Then came the buses full of soldier passing by where she worked. + +The only other story she told me from that time was that once She and Marge got a ride how from a stranger, back when they were living in Kansas and that was a big deal I guess.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un bk3 notes.txt b/un bk3 notes.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..1e965a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/un bk3 notes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +bk3-Notes + +The prewar character writes a book and loses it, the post war modern character is a rare book dealer looking for that book. Or the other book, or they turn out to be the same book. Or there is no fucking book. Who know?
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un bk3 sketches.txt b/un bk3 sketches.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..72c7237 --- /dev/null +++ b/un bk3 sketches.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +bk3-Sketches + +Ambrose as a traveling salesman/huckster specializing in uranium speculation and land, meets up with 1930s movie star at the gas station (munsen's garage) + +Ambrose comes back to SF after the war, lives in Berkley, meets up wit movies star again at a party they move back to the desert to speculate uranium, back to tucson. + +Tucson smells like Orange groves when drive into town in 1940ish in the spring, back when there were organge groves on orange grove road. + +Scene in a diner where tornado sirens go off and the characters don't know what they are, the go outside and the town is deserted etc. (ron's story) + +(Emma and marge were very close, called each other dinky and ditty diff --git a/un character scratch.txt b/un character scratch.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..23cf9ac --- /dev/null +++ b/un character scratch.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +un-character scratch + +Scratch as Col tigh. A slightly annoying drunkard who turns out the be the man in black at the end? Or turns out the be very important, but unwilling to admit it.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un character.txt b/un character.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..3ecae36 --- /dev/null +++ b/un character.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +un-character + +tags: #bk-unseen +date: January 18, 2013 01:20:59 PM +--- + +Character named the frenchman, grizzled older man, forties, drinks alot collect specimens for a museum back in france, trying to rebuild the lost archives of, well, something of that nature...
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un claire.txt b/un claire.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..ea38439 --- /dev/null +++ b/un claire.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +un-Claire + +They come after Claire because? And who are they? + +They come after the girl in Ameritown, but Sil thinks they're coming after him, Claire thinks they're coming after her, The man in black helps them escape across the canal? + diff --git a/un endings.txt b/un endings.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..b77a0ea --- /dev/null +++ b/un endings.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +un-endings + +The Protectorate chases them all the way to India where Waiben's experiment pushes the AI into the higher dimensions accessed by the collider, the girl si left behind as a 4 dimensional tape recorder...
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un humingbird.txt b/un humingbird.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..409f246 --- /dev/null +++ b/un humingbird.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +un-humingbird + +Humingbirds fly across the gulf of mexico every year, from Florida to Gautamala/Nicaragua/etc, one of them falls on Sil's boat, scene with the little girl, Sil tells her about the humingbirds that's how they know they're getting close.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un image fan.txt b/un image fan.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..5b0646d --- /dev/null +++ b/un image fan.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +un-image fan + +Someone staring at a ceiling fan the spinning motion looks like the wheel of an old reel to reel film machine rewinding.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un note humanize.txt b/un note humanize.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..efe9291 --- /dev/null +++ b/un note humanize.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +un-note humanize + +I need to humanize the enemy, there has to be a character in the protectorate that people can sympathize with, otherwise why would anyone be living there? There has to be something good about the protectorate... it's dafe, it's predictable, it's beautiful, it just works (a kind of paradoy of Apple? Complete with Gruber references? That would be hilarious. + +Then there also need to be a sympathic character within the place. Or at least a bad guy that is filled out enough to add a little depth and complexity to that section. + +The man in black is playing both sides...?
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un notes .txt b/un notes .txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..5a044e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/un notes .txt @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +un-notes + +If spacetime breaks down, that is, if it's merely a holographic experience, what does that mean for language? -- language as the ability to manipulate the physical world. + +There is no oil in Sil's world, only solar, wind and perhaps anti-matter from the http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/08/antimatter-particles-found-in-orbit-held-by-earths-magnetic-field.ars + +Sil uses this in civy areas: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/06/military-bat-hook-sucks-free-power-from-overhead-lines/? + +Convent of the Holy Fern as nerf town parody? Set in Zihuatanejo? + +Everything always comes back to vibrating strings -- music, the electromagnetic boat engine, the stealth fabric on the hull of the boat, the singing of the ayahusca, the hologram vibration -- life is a dance. + +Drugs as AI, time travel and interuptions in the vibrations of space time -- you eat the right drug, your brain experiences a different space time. The mistake we've always made is assuming that time travel would a phyical experience, one where we keep track of our bodies, our current conception of self when in fact, that's not true.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un notes claire.txt b/un notes claire.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..8e7e29f --- /dev/null +++ b/un notes claire.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +un-notes claire + +Claire was still carting around her grandmother's ashes the day the puzzles lined up... + +---- + +Perhaps there is no bomb, it's an earthquake that knocks out I2, Claire starts the crossword puzzle at the house, picks up another one at the restuarant and then logs into I2 after the windows rattle and then she goes to waiben's house where she finds the thrid crossword puzzle and him gone. Kill the scene with Ethan, or switch it to Waiben's house and then she steals the car, heads for the border, same as before.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un notes past.txt b/un notes past.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..6db1a9f --- /dev/null +++ b/un notes past.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +un-notes past + +The past exists in two forms, artifacts (written words, photos etc) and memory.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un notes quotes.txt b/un notes quotes.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..446aaab --- /dev/null +++ b/un notes quotes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +un-notes quotes + +Phrana the story of Claire and Waiben in India as pranha, the life force underlying the world a la the Higgs particle... + +Also, life has a melody, a rythem of notes.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un notes religion.txt b/un notes religion.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..09e9849 --- /dev/null +++ b/un notes religion.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +un-notes religion + +Monotheism is a necessary evolutionary leap
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un plastic.txt b/un plastic.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..934500c --- /dev/null +++ b/un plastic.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +un-plastic + +Plasmatic -- helmet connections that are implanted to the skin. The girl has the first one? Everyone else has goggles with plasmatic lenses, but her interface is directly on the skin, in the eyeball? + +She's always tracked, she sees the world with an extra layer of data overlayed, but for her that's normal, that's how she has always seen the world.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un plot sketch sil claire waiben.txt b/un plot sketch sil claire waiben.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..955600c --- /dev/null +++ b/un plot sketch sil claire waiben.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +un-plot sketch Sil-Claire-Waiben + +Claire meets up with Sil at the freeport on the Nicaraguan coast where he is hiding out with the girl and Scratch at Dean's stronghold. Sil hears what Waiben is up to and they all cross the pacific together to try to stop him, final showdown and retreat west to Europe where Claire scatters her grandmother's ashes and there are some tie-ins to the turn of the century portion of the book.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un plot sketches.txt b/un plot sketches.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..557bcb8 --- /dev/null +++ b/un plot sketches.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +un-plot sketches + +Sil and Scratch in NO finish the boat and leave with Dahlia. They sail south to various ports, dodgin pirates, falling humingbirds, etc. Just of the coast of Montepio TK is killed, Sil and crew go ashore to bury TK and meet Claire and take her aboard. They give her a ride to the canal, which is only rumored to still exist. + +They meet Dean who is running a whorehouse in Nicaragua, another stilt village. He comes aboard to escape Lazlo (the man in black) biut why is Lazlo after Dean? Then the merry troupe sails across the pacific to india because Claire wants to find Waiben (?), the girl wants to destory the collider? Or make sure it works? Lazlo shows up in india, Claire and Sil end up together, Deans is one that turns and walks away into the crowd (as in that very old scene in some notebook somewhere...) + +So how does the book fit into it? Is there still a book, shit, forgot about that idea. + +How does cycle 1 fit with cycle 4? The books could something of lazlos or it could bthe hournal of Claire's grandfather, it could be that cycle 1 is told through Claire reading the book on the boat, but that would have some serious limitations. It could be a first person voice to that's just separate ala McCann or Mitchell....
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un question.txt b/un question.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..bf9e59d --- /dev/null +++ b/un question.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +un-question + +What happens when you labor in ignorance of what you are building and what you're building turns out to be very "bad"? + +A question for Sil, perhaps Waiben as well.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un quote america.txt b/un quote america.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..c2416e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/un quote america.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +un-quote-America + +No one defends America when it collapses because there was nothing left to defend, the place itself, the public spaces -- which reflect who we are -- were no longer worth defending.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un quote opening.txt b/un quote opening.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..9986fa6 --- /dev/null +++ b/un quote opening.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +un-Quote Opening + +In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates. + +-- Michel Foucault, Of Other Spaces, 1967 + +“It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.” + +-Steve Jobs (quoted in Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, 1987)
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un scene boat.txt b/un scene boat.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..c9238c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/un scene boat.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +un-scene boat + +Sil has a picture on the boat of a young girl. The real girl asks who it is and Sil says he doesn't know, the found it in an abndoned house, he keeps it because it reminds him of everything that isn't. + +The girls (the real girl) is an artifact AI conceived to record document and store. When she dies everything he has recorded downloads into the net and becoes a digital artifact, but without a physical form, digital can have no artifact of its own. At least n ot in the sense that we typically think of an artifact. + +A purely digital workd means a loss of artifaces -- no ??? no way to retrieve + +There are many recording devices like the little girl. Every human is essentially a recording device, the Man in black is the origial analog recording device, Claire is another. + +Sil figures part of this out in Ameritown, Everyone else who runs either thinks someone is fater them or that they're just helping the little girl. + +The people running the protectorate know what the girl is, they abducted her from wherever because they want to stop the AI, the software machines before they get more powerful? Or perhaps they want to stop them from leaving as they do at the end? diff --git a/un scene claire.txt b/un scene claire.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..c1f88ad --- /dev/null +++ b/un scene claire.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +un-scene Claire + +The reformers of the holy fen (fern)? (the nuns that take in Calire after she scapes from Chaz in the desert again, they find her crossing the mountains and take her into the convent for the winter. In the spring she makes her way down to the coastline, the sea around Galveston/mexico where she meets Cil, etc. + +Base the Holy Fern on the quote from BK that even after all the gods are gone the world will still worship empty idols.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un scene sil and scratch.txt b/un scene sil and scratch.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..8bd834d --- /dev/null +++ b/un scene sil and scratch.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +un-scene Sil and Scratch + +Sil and Scratch are with a new crew in new orleans, the city on stilts, the boat is docked inside a half collapsed old parking garage. Sil is up on the roof of the garage, using the one portion that's stable and igh enough to set up a small dish and connect to the tk + +Below Scratch tells the new guy the back story of the boat, Sil, the fall of new orleans, etc?
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un sketch sil waiben.txt b/un sketch sil waiben.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..2267dc4 --- /dev/null +++ b/un sketch sil waiben.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +un-sketch sil waiben + +Sil used to work with Waiben on a project that involved trying to create "higher dimensional plains using vocalizations during Ayahusca sessions (nod to T mckenna there). Waiben became more interested in the physicality of the spaces encountered, i.e. he wanted to follow the physical outside the context of the mind and Sil wanted to keep exploring the mind and leave the physical behind (comparison to a digital self as opposed to the analog body, the old conception of self as a container of meat. Waiben becomes a T. Leary type evangelist and does in fact find the echos of lower dimensions, the hologram theory and higgs particle while Sil drops out entirely and becomes a bit more like a John Lilly-type of personal space explorer.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/un the book.txt b/un the book.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..55148ef --- /dev/null +++ b/un the book.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +un-The book + +Claire is carrying a book when she flees tucson, a book that belonged to her grandmother and her grandmother's ashes. The ashes are what lead her all the way back to Budapest. The book I don't quite have a handle on yet. + +What is the book? Is it a lost tome of some secret knowledge? Secrets of magic? A map to the 22 characters of the tarot? The man in black's guide to power? The trickster/pan/devil's practical joke? A children's book that tells the story of the Pree sisters/family and mirrors the novel?
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/use mutt and gnome keyring.txt b/use mutt and gnome keyring.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..be068cd --- /dev/null +++ b/use mutt and gnome keyring.txt @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +First, install the Python bindings for gnome-keyring: + +yum install gnome-python2-gnomekeyring +Download the file ~/.offlineimap.py and add the following settings in ~/.offlineimaprc. This assumes that you use a local IMAP server. + +[general] + +pythonfile = ~/.offlineimap.py + +[Repository localhost] + +type = IMAP +remotehost = localhost +remoteusereval = get_username("localhost") +remotepasseval = get_password("localhost") + +[Repository Zimbra] + +type = IMAP +remotehost = mail.example.com +remoteusereval = get_username("mail.example.com") +remotepasseval = get_password("mail.example.com") +Download the script imap-passwords and run it to add the IMAP usernames and passwords to your keyring. It will prompt you for server, username and password - use the same host names as in .offlineimaprc. + +Now you can run offlineimap in a loop to automatically restart it in the case of some unrecoverable error, like so: + +#!/bin/bash + +while true; do + /usr/bin/offlineimap + echo Restarting in 60 seconds ... + sleep 60 +done +During the first run, gnome-keyring will ask you to authorize offlineimap to access your IMAP authentication data in the default keyring. + +Thanks to Sebastian Rittau for the Keyring Python module.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/wallace quote.txt b/wallace quote.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..d2413b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/wallace quote.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +Wallace quote + +David Foster Wallace, said it best: “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/what to get everyone for christmas.txt b/what to get everyone for christmas.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..90fb3a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/what to get everyone for christmas.txt @@ -0,0 +1,83 @@ +What to get everyone for Christmas + +From <http://www.raptitude.com/2013/12/what-to-get-everyone-for-christmas/> + +# What to get everyone for Christmas + +by David Cain + + + +Every Christmas, after the initial flurry of present-opening, we’d toss all the paper into the biggest box we could find. Sometimes the cat would make a bed of it, and she seemed pretty comfortable. So when I’d walk down my back lane to learn what toys other kids got, I’d imagine gathering every family’s paper in one giant pile and jumping into it like raked-up leaves. + +If the homes on our little street would have made a pile the size of a minivan, then the entire city’s paper would surely make a pile the size of a small office building. You could jump from a plane into it and be fine. Each city in Canada would contribute another building-sized pile, every year, until you had an entire city of crumpled gift wrap. The paper from the US would make it ten or twelve times larger. A decade’s worth would be unimaginable. + +It occurs to me only now that the gifts that came in that paper would make an astronomically larger heap — an entire Death Star of toys and kitch, having come at a cost of about 5 trillion dollars. + +Gradually I began to realize that while having new toys is a wonderful feeling, nothing was quite as wonderful as unwrapping them. The high topped out in the morning hours and wore off faster each year. By January, our family’s joy level was always about back to normal, maybe a little lower, and the decorations and ads that were still around by that time only made me sad it was over. The new stuff was still around, but it was no longer so new, and Christmas didn’t leave me with the net gain it seemed to promise. What we were really buying was the swell of awesome feelings that crested at about 9am on the 25th and then gently drained back to sea level. + +The items we end up giving or getting at Christmas are usually entirely ephemeral. A typical American or Canadian has received thousands of dollars in Christmas gifts throughout his or her lifetime, and would be hard pressed to remember getting the vast majority of them, let alone tell you what those gifts are doing for them now. Ultimately they’re bought to stir up the magic and promise of Christmas, and they do, but often that’s all they do. + +The bulk of consumers’ Christmas trillions is spent trying to buy an intangible thing we can call The Magic of Christmas. Some of this Magic certainly comes from outside the shopping aspect — the closeness of family, the warmth of sweaters and boozy board game sessions — but that’s the free part. The vast majority of the spending arises from chasing the ecstatic feeling of Christmas morning one felt as a child, even if you’re grown up now and only want it for your children. + +The rest of the year we would call this feeling abundance. It’s not a feeling particular to Christmas, but for a lot of kids Christmas morning represents the abundance feeling at its peak concentration. The first days of Summer break gives a similar high, but it’s spread over a much longer period and so it’s never quite as dazzling. There is also a minor spike in the fall, the evening of Halloween. In each case the abundance feeling is glorious, but fades quickly. + +I don’t want to dismiss the lasting meaning of this Magic, or these gift-opening experiences. Some of my best memories are of those glowing days surrounding my childhood Christmases. But the gift-receiving part was absolutely central to making those days glow for me, and I think this is true for almost every child. Experiences of abundance are intoxicating and unforgettable, and we seek them everywhere in life, but for many of us we never find them so dependably as we do at Christmas. + +There are ways to create abundance that are far less costly than through traditional Christmas shopping though, and which keep it going much better. Only later in life would I start learning to get that abundant feeling from simple luxuries like walls, socks, food and visits with loved ones, and would it appear more evenly throughout the year. + +### Gifts that give + +Christmas gives most generously to those who are doing the selling. The vast majority of everyday people are on the losing side of the enormous exchange of value that takes place during the holidays. As nervous as the word “inflation” makes people, cash itself does a much greater job at retaining its value than most of the stuff we spend it on, and this is doubly true at Christmas. + +The holiday mall-goer typically trades money for things whose value fades much more quickly, and never had as much to begin with. Imagine buying an investment that’s almost guaranteed to lose half its value in 24 hours. That is the range of investment quality we’re talking about for most of the shopping that goes on in December. That’s because we don’t think of Christmas purchases as any kind of investment, and even if we did we don’t know another way to go about it. + +The pivotal understanding in moving from unhealthy finances to healthy finances is learning this: feelings are what you’re actually trying to buy with every purchase. Every _thing_ we want [amounts to a feeling we want](http://www.raptitude.com/2012/07/what-you-want-is-never-a-thing/), and so everything we buy amounts to an attempt to buy a source of emotional experience, even if we don’t realize it. + +This is true throughout the year, but at Christmas in particular we open our wallets out of conditioning and momentum, rather than a clear-minded reflection on the real value gained (for either ourselves or the recipient.) When you feel like you’re buying abundance, it seems like you can never buy too much. + +In terms of the joyful feelings and quality of life we’re actually seeking with our purchases, there’s a vast range in return on investment. Some people make terrible investments their whole lives by making purchases that are enormously expensive, give only a few moments of pleasure, and come with a bag of potential health and social issues — hard drugs and prostitutes, as an extreme example. + +Every year a gazillion consumer dollars go towards buying similarly short-lived feelings, often junk that may make someone smile for ten seconds when they open it but never does anyone any other good. The joy-per-dollar rate for most Christmas gifts is probably pretty low in most families. When you think that people often go into high-interest debt to fund this losing exchange, it goes from silly to sad. + +At the opposite end of the spectrum are purchases that generate returns for a long time. That is how the rich get rich: they are careful to buy only things that pay them in some way, like businesses, properties, educations and business leads. And they certainly are careful not to buy things that leak money or value. + +But financial abundance is only one kind of abundance. Some purchases also pay its owner interest and dividends, in the form of personal growth, insight, skills or confidence. The principle of [compound interest](http://www.raptitude.com/2013/01/the-most-powerful-force-in-the-universe-and-how-to-use-it/) applies in virtually every area of personal gain, and the rates of return are far greater than even the best financial investments. Ten percent is nothing. + +The best purchase I ever made for myself was an online blogging course, back in January of 2009. It was a few hundred dollars, and directly because of it I found my passion in life, I’ve become a much more happy and capable person, I’ve made thousands of dollars and I escaped the rat race, and the best of its returns are certainly yet to come. That gift kept on giving and will keep on giving probably past the end of my life — over the years as this blog grows and my writing skills improve, I’m helping increasingly more people, and I’m increasingly more free to make my best contributions to the world. + +I didn’t quite know the astounding value of that purchase at the time, but I certainly would have been more likely to make that purchase if I had been in the habit of only spending on things I expected to create some form of lasting returns. Spending on education was out-of-character for me, and it was a major purchase. I feel very lucky that I had a good feeling about it, because it was an absolute steal — orders of magnitude better than successfully nabbing a $39 television or any other Black Friday loss leader. + +### Give growth for Christmas + +All purchases are exchanges of value. Many, or maybe most Christmas gift exchanges disperse the value something like this: the giver comes away with some debt and the mildly relieving feeling of having fulfilling one of his social obligations; the recipient gets a bit high opening it and possibly enjoys using it, but will soon forget it; the retailer adds a bit of money to his money pile. Retailers want this kind of exchange to happen as often as possible. + +Sometimes it works out better though, and the giver feels wonderful and the recipient gains something lasting, _and_ the seller adds to his stack. But I think this is the exception — most of the consumer Death Star is built from waste and debt. But we can make that happen more often by thinking consciously about the real-life value of what we buy. + +Imagine if after Christmas, millions of people were left with the means to become better and more capable people, rather than billions in debt. + +Last year I announced to my family that I’m no longer going to participate in the normal exchange of gifts. I just don’t feel good about it. I’ve come to feel a tinge of guilt at buying any [new, manufactured good](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/11/getting-started-2-the-higher-cause/), and I think this is a feeling usually worth trusting. + +Yesterday my mother suggested a wonderful alternative for gift-giving between the adults of the family: we each find books that we think everyone will like, and give a random wrapped book to each other person, which we will pass along to each other throughout the year as we read them. In our case everyone would get a new book to read each month of the year. This I feel good about because the value of each purchase goes to multiple people, and that [good books](http://www.raptitude.com/50-books-in-52-weeks/) deliver lasting value, even lifelong value. + +Everyone has a different emotional relationship to the gift-giving aspect of Christmas. Some can’t stand it and some love it. I acknowledge that opting-out of the tradition isn’t desirable (or possible) for all of you, so I suggest getting gifts that pay interest — skills, insight, recurring joy. This creates abundance of the lasting kind. + +And if your gifts return compounding value, give this abundance to yourself too. It’s easier to know what gift will pay you the greatest dividends than it is to know the long-term value of a gift to someone else, so take advantage of how well you know your recipient. Make an annual tradition of giving yourself a gift that leaves you with a new skill or a recurring source of joy or income. + +My post-Christmas gift to myself in 2009 paid for itself in the monetary sense a long time ago, but it also pays me every day in a dozen ways, particularly in the moment I wake up and remember that I don’t have a boss any more. _(The course isn’t available anymore, because [the man who taught me to blog](http://bit.ly/1fWHvpS) is now focusing on teaching people to build membership sites.)_ + +If you feel guilt about buying a present for yourself, then make it one you expect to pay off in dollars, because it’s easier to see that there’s no loss in value. A new skill — or better, starting a tiny business — could pay for all your holiday gifts by this time next year. If you want to start a one-person business, you live in an era where it’s as easy as it’s probably ever going to be. Chris Guillebeau runs a [lifestyle business course](http://unconventionalguides.com/cmd.php?Clk=5145840) that could make a chimpanzee back his money several times over in a year. + +I’ll probably get something else too, but one thing I know I’m getting for myself this year is a book about making bread from scratch, along with the necessary kitchenware. I’m going to learn to make my own bread, which will make its money back quickly, be a lot of fun, and give me one of those gritty medieval skills that I’ll have forever. I wish I had done this for each of the last dozen Christmases. + +Whatever you do, think of all your gift purchases in terms of what they are likely to deliver _beyond_ the initial rush of receiving them. Imagine what the world would be like if that was a cultural norm. Imagine what just a decade of that mentality would for the population, even if the tradition were started only today. + +I’ll give you your first idea for free. Plant a seed by sharing this post on Facebook. + +*** + +If you liked this article, get email updates for free. + +[(Or click here to get it via RSS.)](http://www.raptitude.com/feed) + +[raptitude.com __](http://www.raptitude.com/2013/12/what-to-get-everyone-for-christmas/) * by David Cain diff --git a/what work is really for.txt b/what work is really for.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..833bf90 --- /dev/null +++ b/what work is really for.txt @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ +What Work Is Really For - NYTimes.com + +From <http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/work-good-or-bad/?src=me&ref=general&_r=1> + +# What Work Is Really For + +Is work good or bad? A fatuous question, it may seem, with unemployment such a pressing national concern. (Apart from the names of the two candidates, “jobs” was the politically relevant word [most used by speakers](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/06/us/politics/convention-word-counts.html) at the Republican and Democratic conventions.) Even apart from current worries, the goodness of work is deep in our culture. We applaud people for their work ethic, judge our economy by its productivity and even honor work with a national holiday. + +But there’s an underlying ambivalence: we celebrate Labor Day by not working, the Book of Genesis says work is punishment for Adam’s sin, and many of us count the days to the next vacation and see a contented retirement as the only reason for working. + +We’re ambivalent about work because in our capitalist system it means work-for-pay (wage-labor), not for its own sake. It is what philosophers call an instrumental good, something valuable not in itself but for what we can use it to achieve. For most of us, a paying job is still utterly essential — as masses of unemployed people know all too well. But in our economic system, most of us inevitably see our work as a means to something else: it makes a living, but it doesn’t make a life. + +What, then, is work for? Aristotle has a striking answer: “we work to have leisure, on which happiness depends.” This may at first seem absurd. How can we be happy just doing nothing, however sweetly (_dolce far niente_)? Doesn’t idleness lead to boredom, the life-destroying ennui portrayed in so many novels, at least since “Madame Bovary”? + +Everything depends on how we understand leisure. Is it mere idleness, simply doing nothing? Then a life of leisure is at best boring (a lesson of Voltaire’s “Candide”), and at worst terrifying (leaving us, as Pascal says, with nothing to distract from the thought of death). No, the leisure Aristotle has in mind is _productive activity enjoyed for its own sake_, while work is done for something else. + +We can pass by for now the question of just what activities are truly enjoyable for their own sake — perhaps eating and drinking, sports, love, adventure, art, contemplation? The point is that engaging in such activities — and sharing them with others — is what makes a good life. Leisure, not work, should be our primary goal. + +Bertrand Russell, in his classic essay [“In Praise of Idleness,”](http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html) agrees. ”A great deal of harm,” he says, “is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work.” Instead, “the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.” Before the technological breakthroughs of the last two centuries, leisure could be only “the prerogative of small privileged classes,” supported by slave labor or a near equivalent. But this is no longer necessary: “The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.” + +Using Adam Smith’s famous example of pins, Russell makes the solution seem utterly simple: + +> Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. + +We are, Russell thinks, kept from a world of leisure only by a perversely lingering prejudice in favor of work for its own sake. + +But isn’t Russell making an obvious mistake? He assumes that the only reason to continue working eight hours a day would be to make more pins, which we don’t need. In modern capitalism, however, the idea would be to make better pins (or perhaps something even better than pins), in that way improving the quality of our lives. Suppose that in 1932, when Russell wrote his essay, we had followed his advice and converted all gains in productivity into increased leisure. Antibiotics, jet airplanes and digital computers, then just glimmers on the horizon, would likely never have become integral parts of our lives. We can argue about just what constitutes real progress, but it’s clear that Russell’s simple proposal would sometimes mean trading quality of life for more leisure. + +Leif Parsons + +But capitalism as such is not interested in quality of life. It is essentially a system for producing things to sell at a profit, the greater the better. If products sell because they improve the quality of our life, well and good, but it doesn’t in the end matter why they sell. The system works at least as well if a product sells not because it is a genuine contribution to human well-being but because people are falsely persuaded that they should have it. Often, in fact, it’s easier to persuade people to buy something that’s inferior than it is to make something that’s superior. This is why stores are filled with products that cater to fads and insecurities but no real human need. + +It would seem, then, that we should increase leisure — and make life more worthwhile — by producing only what makes for better lives. In turn, workers would have the satisfaction of producing things of real value. (For a recent informed and vigorous defense of this view, see Robert and Edward Skidelsky, _[How Much Is Enough?](http://www.randomhouse.com/book/216918/how-much-is-enough-by-robert-skidelsky-and-edward-skidelsky)_) + +But this raises the essential question: who decides what is of real value? The capitalist system’s own answer is _consumers_ , free to buy whatever they want in an open market. I call this capitalism’s own answer because it is the one that keeps the system operating autonomously, a law unto itself. It especially appeals to owners, managers and others with a vested interest in the system. + +But the answer is disingenuous. From our infancy the market itself has worked to make us consumers, primed to buy whatever it is selling regardless of its relevance to human flourishing. True freedom requires that we take part in the market as fully formed agents, with life goals determined not by advertising campaigns but by our own experience of and reflection on the various possibilities of human fulfillment. Such freedom in turn requires a liberating education, one centered not on indoctrination, social conditioning or technical training but on developing persons capable of informed and intelligent commitments to the values that guide their lives. + +This is why, especially in our capitalist society, education must not be primarily for training workers or consumers (both tools of capitalism, as Marxists might say). Rather, schools should aim to produce self-determining agents who can see through the blandishments of the market and insist that the market provide what they themselves have decided they need to lead fulfilling lives. Capitalism, with its devotion to profit, is not in itself evil. But it becomes evil when it controls our choices for the sake of profit. + +Capitalism works for the good only when our independent choices determine what the market must produce to make a profit. These choices — of liberally educated free agents — will set the standards of capitalist production and lead to a world in which, as Aristotle said, work is for the sake of leisure. We are, unfortunately, far from this ideal, but it is one worth working toward. + +__ + +_Gary Gutting is a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and an editor of [Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews](http://ndpr.nd.edu/about/). He is the author of, most recently, “Thinking the Impossible: French Philosophy Since 1960″ and writes regularly for The Stone. +_ + +[NYTimes Blogs __](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/work-good-or-bad/?src=me&ref=general&_r=1) * by GARY GUTTING * November 19, 2013 diff --git a/when did goods get so bad.txt b/when did goods get so bad.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..1da7b42 --- /dev/null +++ b/when did goods get so bad.txt @@ -0,0 +1,59 @@ +When did goods get so bad? + +tags: refx, stuff +date: November 18, 2013 10:14:47 AM +--- + +From <http://www.raptitude.com/2013/09/when-did-goods-get-so-bad/> + +# When did goods get so bad? + +by David Cain + + + +The city was behaving very strangely while I was out walking Saturday morning. Cars went by too slowly, as if they were stalking me, or someone. Every pedestrian but me seemed to be have a backpack or a large shopping bag, and I knew most of them didn’t live in my neighborhood. + +A young woman walked by pushing an empty stroller and the paranoia really started to creep into my muscles. I suddenly became convinced that I was being filmed. A passing Cavalier came to a stop in the middle of the street and sat there for a moment. Whatever was going to happen was about to happen now. Two Middle Eastern men got out, leaving the doors open and the engine running. They trotted into a back alley, and emerged carrying a coffee table. + +I had forgotten that it’s Winnipeg’s giveaway weekend, where citizens are encouraged to leave their unwanted home furnishings on the boulevard in front of their houses, for others to pick up if they like. Thrift-minded Winnipeggers hit the streets early Saturday, usually in pairs, to skulk through other people’s neighborhoods at creepy-slow speeds, hoping to find anything that may possibly be useful: worn-out golf bags, folding chairs, tarpaulins, drawerless dressers, dresserless drawers, sander belts, axe handles, maybe even a pair of Shake-Weights or a Jolly Jumper. + +I’d intended to put out my items before the foragers left home: a tiny computer desk, a box of low-quality paintball gear, and a particle-board bookshelf. I forgot but knew it would be no problem finding a taker later on. The most important thing not to forget on giveaway weekend is to keep everything you do wish to keep as far as possible from the front boulevard. It’s even dangerous to leave something anywhere in the front yard. Every year careless people lose bikes, lawnmowers and garden gnomes, because anybody could haul it off and, if stopped in the act, make a case that they thought it was free. + +Quirks aside, I love that we have giveaway weekends. There’s something beautiful about how it allows an object to regain its lost worthiness, by gaining a new owner. When I did put my items out later in the morning, they were gone before I could return to my desk with my coffee — I had hoped to see their new owners through the window. + +The value of everyday household stuff has dwindled noticeably in my lifetime. I remember accompanying my dad, one Summer weekday when I was ten, to a little shop to get the family VCR repaired. Repaired! Can you imagine that? There were people running a profitable business fixing small appliances — toasters, coffee makers and Video Cassette Recorders — because even a few decades ago there was an expectation of lasting value in these things. Today we typically [bury](http://www.raptitude.com/2011/01/a-day-in-the-future/) malfunctioning electronic devices in the ground and buy new ones. It’s possible that there will be a time when children are surprised to hear their parents used to have their cars fixed too. + +Certain aspects of the human world are marching pretty steadily in a particular direction, the growing disposableness of our goods being only one of them. But they aren’t all moving in a bad direction. Over my lifetime I’ve seen a steady increase, for example, in the recognition of gays as regular people, the ease of self-publishing your own creative work, and freedom of expression generally. I like the way things are moving on those fronts. So don’t think I’m saying that the world is going uniformly to Hell. But the quality of the objects with which we populate our homes is certainly not a category in which we’re moving towards humanity’s potential. + +In New Zealand I met a young, pseudo-Buddhist Englishman — he high-fived me when he learned I had been meditating on the hostel’s back porch — who carefully washed and reused plastic bags other travelers had left. He explained that they are as permanent as everything else, and so he wanted to get some value out of the refuse of others if he could. “The only thing that makes them disposable is that we’re told to dispose of them,” he said. “If the ancient Egyptians made these, we’d still be finding them.” + +I respect the way he valued value. He recommended getting rid of everything I own at least once, then go backpacking with a change of clothes and a book to see how infrequently I had to actually buy something in order to get by. It sounded more extreme to me at the time than it does now. + +A stand-up lamp I bought a year ago is now showing signs of senility. The brightest setting is no longer where the knob is all the way to the right, it’s at a random position somewhere along its rotation each time I turn it on. The off position, similarly, is not quite at the other end any more, it’s migrated a few millimeters to the right. When I bought it I remember consciously avoiding the low-end ones and getting the heavier, more expensive one because I wanted a trustworthy light source. + +It’s become pretty normal for “goods” to be pretty bad. So after seeing the delight with which a different person carries away the same bookshelf I can’t bloody stand to look at any more, I want to celebrate and maximize the value of the things I let into my life. There’s no strict timeframe for this, so I’m not making a formal [experiment](http://www.raptitude.com/experiments/) out of it, but I am going to set a definite compass heading here. From here on in I want to move against the cultural current by gradually transitioning my estate to include only lasting, fixable possessions, even if the world around me continues to lower its standards. + +Broken down, that means: + +**Only buy new things that I expect to last a long time.** It’s true that there are some types of products that are simply not available in the long-lasting variety. If I want to participate in the smart-phone world, for example, (and at this point I do) I will not expect to find one that will last ten years. But I will go with the makes that seem to be the most durable. My Samsung Android has survived quite a bit, including being submerged in running ditchwater for a good half-minute. + +**Acquire fewer things.** Even if I’m not actively minimizing possessions, acquiring fewer things is a necessary side-effect because the initial purchase price of a high-quality item is going to be higher, even though cheaper items tend to cost more in the long run because they need replacing sooner. As I get more and more [frugal](http://www.raptitude.com/2013/04/how-much-of-your-life-are-you-selling-off/), the purchase of a new item (or even a quality used one) is becoming rarer. This is good all around I think. As [Mr. Money Mustache](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/11/getting-started-2-the-higher-cause/) has said, “Buying yourself a new manufactured product should hurt a little bit.” + +**Find owners for things I don’t want.** When something has become valueless for me, there is almost certainly someone out there in this city who would value it. Sometimes it’s a little more work to find an owner than to drag it to the bin, but often it’s not. Putting it on Kijiji or Craigslist often means you only have to drag it as far as your front door. + +**Fix broken things, if possible.** For every item that has ever been successfully fixed by a DIY enthusiast, there is a Youtube video showing you how you can do it too. Fixing something is an incredible feeling. + +**Own nothing that makes me feel bad.** This includes not only the low-quality but also the unnecessary. If I don’t have actual intentions for it, it ought to be somebody else’s. I’d rather own fifty good things than a thousand crummy things. + +Some part of me yearns for a [Walden](http://amzn.to/1aX4VsY)-like life of sturdy hand tools and homemade everything, in a self-built shack outside the edge of town. I would like to trust and respect every item I use in my daily life, which means the fewer items there are, and the simpler they are, the better. The motive here isn’t exactly minimizing the volume of possessions, but maximizing their quality. + +I know I’m too dependent on 21st century miracles like the internet to go quite as far as, say, Thoreau. Still, I would like to begin pruning the dead overgrowth away from where I am, and see what kind of material life I end up with before it truly pains me to cut one more thing loose. + +*** + +If you liked this article, get email updates for free. + +[(Or click here to get it via RSS.)](http://www.raptitude.com/feed) + +[raptitude.com __](http://www.raptitude.com/2013/09/when-did-goods-get-so-bad/) * by David Cain diff --git a/why procrastination happens.txt b/why procrastination happens.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..487fe51 --- /dev/null +++ b/why procrastination happens.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +Why Procrastination Happens + +Procrastination sometimes happens because you don't feel like you have permission to do any one thing because you have 50 things you feel like you should be doing and therefore you end up doing none of them. Let that spiral on you for a while and you'll be effectively paralyzed. + diff --git a/workout advanced body weight circuit.txt b/workout advanced body weight circuit.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..7e26583 --- /dev/null +++ b/workout advanced body weight circuit.txt @@ -0,0 +1,95 @@ +[Source](http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/17/advanced-body-weight-workout-warning-this-will-kick-your-ass/ "Permalink to Advanced Body Weight Workout - This Will Kick Your Ass") + +# Advanced Body Weight Workout - This Will Kick Your Ass + +Join the Rebellion, get free eBooks. + +If this little dude can get in shape without a gym, what's your excuse? + + +Most gyms these days are loaded with chumps, meatheads, pushy salesmen, and people who suck at working out. (If you DO go to a gym, [make sure you DON'T suck at it][1]). Luckily, you can burn fat, build muscle, and get a great workout using just your body weight. Most of you saw the [Beginner Bodyweight Workout][2] I posted last week. If you didn't, I'd recommend starting there before moving onto this routine, because this is uber-advanced and designed for nerds looking for a brutally difficult challenge. + +Are you ready for this? + +## NF Advanced Body Weight Workout + +Warning: this workout that will have you sweating like a pig and leave you sore all over the next day. If you're just moving beyond the [beginner body weight workout][3] for the first time, this workout might seem ridiculously difficult. That's because it IS ridiculously difficult – the first time I did this routine, taught to me by fitness guru and mentor [Mike Rickett][4], I wanted to throw up afterwards and couldn't walk straight for two days. You've been warned! + +Obviously, if this routine is too tough, there are quite a few variations you can make to lessen the difficulty and then build your way up to the real deal. Remember, it's important to push yourself outside of your comfort zone, but safely. Don't try to do too much or you'll just end up hurting yourself. + +NOTE: I do use a pull up bar in this routine. If you don't have one at your home, you can head to a park and use their pull up bar, or substitute inverted body weight rows until you are strong enough to do pull ups and chin ups. I include a video of how to do these inverted rows in your home at the end of this post. + +Before you start, WARM UP \- Never ever ever ever forget to warm up. If you're strapped for time, cut short your workout, not your warm up. You can run in place, jump rope, do a few push ups, pedal on a stationary bike, jog up and down your stairs, etc. + +Here's the NF Advanced Body Weight Workout: + + +[Nerd Fitness TV – Advanced Body Weight Workout][5] + +If you want to write down everything, here it is: + +* 10 one legged squats – each side [warning super-difficult, only attempt if you in good enough shape] +* 20 body weight squats +* 20 walking lunges (10 each leg) +* 20 jump step-ups (10 each leg) + +* 10 pull ups [or inverted body weight rows using your kitchen table] +* 10 dips – bar stools +* 10 chin ups [or inverted body weight rows with underhand grip] +* 10 push ups +* 30 second plank + +That's one complete rotation. If you're up for it, try to do 3 complete circuits. Stop when you need to, get water when necessary, but try to finish it as quickly as possible while still practicing PERFECT FORM. The first time I went through this routine it took me right around 18 minutes. What is it with me and [18 minutes of hell][6]? + +You can cut short the number of repetitions, but never half-ass a rep. If you can only do five or six pull ups, bring a chair over to the bar, hop up above the bar and lower yourself down. If you can't do a plank for 30 sec, hold it for 15, and work your way up to 30. If 20 body weight lunges is too many, only do 10 and work your way up to 20. Challenge yourself safely and within reason. + +## Can't Do Pull Ups? Do These Instead + +I'm going to guess that the most difficult exercise for most people in this routine will be the pull ups and the chin ups. If you don't have a pull up bar, or if you're not strong enough to do pull ups yet, here is a video on how to do Inverted Body Weight Rows using just your kitchen table. Most importantly, make sure your table is strong enough or you're going to snap it in half. It isn't optimal, but it's better than nothing, and a good step up from the dumbbell rows in the Beginner Body Weight Circuit. Inverted body weight rows are certainly tough, but not as tough as pull ups and chin ups. Attempt these at your own risk! + + +[Nerd Fitness TV – Inverted Body Weight Rows][7] + +## How to Scale Your Routine + +As I said earlier, this whole routine is scalable based on your ability. For example, here is a sample routine for somebody who has conquered the beginner workout but can't do the full routine above: + +* 10 Body Weight Squats +* 10 Walking Lunges +* 15 Jump Ups +* 3 Pull Ups (or 6 inverted body weight rows – overhand grip on table) +* 8 dips (or 10 decline push ups if these are too tough) +* 3 Chin ups (or 6 inverted body weight rows – underhand grip on table) +* 10 push ups +* 30 second plank +* 30 jumping jacks + +Whatever your fitness level, find a way to push yourself a litter harder, get better, be faster, and grow stronger ([thanks Daft Punk!][8]) Keep track of your exact routine, how long it took you, which exercises wore you out, exactly how many reps you did, etc. + +Then, the next time you do this routine (make sure you wait at least 48 hours before attempting it again), try to do the whole routine with one or two more repetitions or with less down time between exercises. + +## Your thoughts? + +There you have it guys. I would love to hear what you think! I got a lot of great comments on the Beginner Body Weight video, and hopefully those of you who are looking for more of a challenge are getting it here. + +Do you want to see more routine-based videos? More videos like the Inverted Body Weight Row videos showing you how to do specific exercises? Let me know what you want to see, and I'll make it happen. + +-Steve + +PS – For any of you who plan on doing this routine during the next few days, I apologize in advance for how your whole body will feel the next morning! + +### + + + +photo: [eyeliam][9] + +[1]: http://www.nerdfitness.com/2009/10/26/how-to-not-suck-at-working-out/ +[2]: http://www.nerdfitness.com/2009/12/09/beginner-body-weight-workout-burn-fat-build-muscle/ "Beginner body weight workout" +[3]: http://www.nerdfitness.com/2009/12/09/beginner-body-weight-workout-burn-fat-build-muscle/ "Beginner Body Weight Workout" +[4]: http://mikerickett.wordpress.com/ "Mike Rickett" +[5]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZKysm4oAvU "Nerd Fitness Advanced Body Weight Workout" +[6]: http://www.nerdfitness.com/2009/10/14/crossfit-18-minutes-and-48-seconds-of-hell/ "Nerd Fitness Crossfit" +[7]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYUxXMGVuuU "Nerd Fitness TV" +[8]: http://www.nerdfitness.com/2009/12/14/daft-punks-kick-ass-guide-to-fitness/ "Daft Punk" +[9]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyeliam/2539194260/ "eyeliam"
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/workout beginner body weight circuit.txt b/workout beginner body weight circuit.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..076b9c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/workout beginner body weight circuit.txt @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ +[Source](http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/09/beginner-body-weight-workout-burn-fat-build-muscle/ "Permalink to Beginner Body Weight Workout - Build Muscle, Burn Fat") + +# Beginner Body Weight Workout - Build Muscle, Burn Fat + +Join the Rebellion, get free eBooks. + +So you want to get in shape, but you have no gym membership. + +That's fine, screw gyms! + +They're loaded with chumps, meatheads, pushy salesmen, and people who suck at working out. (If you DO go to a gym, [here's how to make sure you DON'T suck at working out][1]). Luckily, you can burn fat, build muscle, and get a great workout using just your body weight. [Learn why cardio][2] is one of the least efficient methods of burning calories, and how you can get a lot done in a little bit of time. By doing body weight circuits, where you complete one exercise right after the other without stopping, you're both building muscle and getting a cardiovascular workout. + +## Why Body Weight Circuits Kick Ass + +What makes body weight circuits work so well? Every exercise involved utilizes multiple muscle groups, gets your heart rate pumping, and burns tons of calories. [Check out this interview][3] from Jason Ferruggia and Alwyn Cosgrove, two fitness gurus whose opinions and research I highly respect. Essentially, circuit weight training burns more calories than interval training, which burns WAY more calories than steady cardio. Essentially, if you're trying to lose weight, spending hours doing cardio on a treadmill is a really crappy use of your time. + +I'm going to take you through a basic workout today that can be completed in your house, apartment, out at a park, in your parents' basement, wherever. As always, make sure you are cleared by your personal physician for physical activity before attempting these exercises. Proceed at your own risk! + +## Beginner Body Weight Workout + +This is a basic body weight circuit. In a circuit routine, you'll do each exercise in succession without a break in between (if you're able). Once you've finished all exercises in the circuit, you do it again. If you're still able after the 2nd run through, go for a third. Because all of these exercises come one after another, you're bound to get tired. It's better to stop and take a break than to do an exercise incorrectly. If you can't do all three circuits without stopping, that gives you something to build towards. + +Before you start, WARM UP \- Never ever ever ever forget to warm up. Make sure to get your heart rate pumping and get your muscles warm or you're just asking for injury. If you're strapped for time, cut short your workout, not your warm up. You can run in place, jump rope, do a few push ups, pedal on a stationary bike, jog up and down your stairs, etc. Don't wear yourself out completely, but get your heart rate elevated and little bit of sweat never hurt anybody. After the warm up, here is exactly what you need to do: + +[Beginner Body Weight Circuit Video][4] + +And so you can write it down, here is the write up for the exercise routine. + +* 20 body weight squats +* 10 push ups +* 20 walking lunges +* 10 dumbbell rows (using a gallon milk jug) +* 15 second plank +* 30 Jumping Jacks + +After you've completed your workout, make sure you stretch. All of your muscles have been contracted from lifting and need to be stretched back out and rebuilt. + +For either the body weight squats or lunges, if you can't do them properly yet, it's okay to put your hand on a support to keep your balance. + +For the body weight squats, think of it like sitting back into a chair. If you can sit down onto a chair, and then stand immediately right back up without having to lean forward, you are in balance. + +For the lunges, keep your eyes ahead and your upper body completely vertical. I had a slight bend at times in the video due to trying to exercise and explain at the same time. + +I used a milk jug for my dumbbell, but you can use whatever is heavy enough for you. Find something that is challenging to lift 10 times in a row. + +Do this routine 2-3 times a week, but never on consecutive days. You don't build muscle when you're exercising, you build muscle when you're resting. Generally I follow a pattern of strength training on one day, then [20 minutes of interval training][5] on the next, then strength training, then interval training, and so on. You never want to do a strength routine two days straight (of the same muscle groups), as your muscles haven't had time to recover. + +Along with this routine, you need to make sure you're eating properly! A good workout and crappy diet will not get you anywhere. Lots of real foods (fruits, vegetables, lean meat, nuts, etc.). Eat natural, whole foods whenever possible, and leave the soda, candy, and junk food out of your system. Your diet is at least 80% of your success or failure.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/workout.txt b/workout.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..762398f --- /dev/null +++ b/workout.txt @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +Workout + +Goal: Full circuit using only body weight. + +Warm up: +10 cat vomit ab lifts +3 Sun salutations +2 full sun salutations + +15 Min: +30 Jumping Jacks +20 body weight squats +20 push ups +15 myotatic crunches (requires pillow) +20 walking lunges +10 dumbbell rows (using available weight) +15 second plank + +x3 + +Cool down: + +2 full sun salutations +yoga pose +deep relax + +mostly pulled from: + +http://nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/09/beginner-body-weight-workout-burn-fat-build-muscle/ + +but added ferriss ab exercises + diff --git a/yuma.txt b/yuma.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..2a0ecb8 --- /dev/null +++ b/yuma.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +Yuma + +Laying down the backseat, watching the Jojoba studded dunes roll past. The swelter of the Mojava forms a ring of sweat round my neck in spite of the air conditioning. Senagalese and Brazilian music on the headphones. We wore these telephone wires like a necklace of sweat round our necks and when you broke 20 miles outside Yuma the slit stream concrete brought our writing to ????? facts none will recognize. I wore these moments with the awkwardness of a plum tree
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