Archive for learn
October 17, 2007 at 9:21 am · Filed under play, learn
On my accumulated list of things I really want to do is to curate a show for which the only theme is “Time”.
Weirdly, this showed up in my RSS feed list yesterday. Icastic, a visualization specialty firm, asked people how they visualize time. There are some truly beautiful entries, like the one at left.
It’s also interesting to see the age/gender/profession of some of the entrants. The younger folks have some unexpected angles that I identify with, as well as ones from engineering minded folks. The ones I submitted haven’t shown up yet.
May 7, 2007 at 4:28 pm · Filed under learn
I’m reading a new slew of books on creativity to find sources that support my own theories about it. Since there is no user manual for my brain I thought I’d write my own. HA!
One book I’m reading is by Ken Robinson called Out of Our Minds. His observation about how impressionism in painting came about was surprising: it happened because of the invention of photography. Apparently, all the painters were thrown off balance by it, convinced that painting would become obsolete. What happened was that painters were pushed to find new styles and techniques to express themselves. So evidently folks like Monet and Matisse developed because of the emergent (what we’d now call disruptive, really) technology of film - I don’t know that I’d ever have made that connection, though it makes perfect logical sense. I’m sure it was a mystery at the time.
April 24, 2007 at 5:08 am · Filed under learn, grist mill
Living in “Internet time,” you’re probably used to being bombarded with information, making snap decisions, and needing to pick up new skills at the drop of a pixel. But a new study from researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brigham and Women’s Hospital is the latest in a series suggesting that we’re not wired to work our best under time pressure.
There is validity in slowing down, even in fast paced environments. Kind of like our speed that varies while driving: sometimes we’re zooming on a freeway, and sometimes we’re going block to block in the city. And sometimes we park and walk. I like this quote also, and can vouch that I’ve woken up hundreds of times with a clearer picture of a next step on a project:
relational memory – the ability to make logical “big picture” inferences from disparate pieces of information – is dependent on taking a break from studies and learning, and even more important, getting a good night’s sleep.
It points back, again to the Aluna Time post: no matter how fast we think we have to be to compete, it’s the ones who know how, when, and for how long to slow down that ultimately come out ahead.
April 18, 2007 at 10:05 am · Filed under learn, grist mill
“I will readily concede that if you achieve something in one hour, you will achieve two somethings in two hours. If your desiring limit is 16 somethings, then you have the mindless formula. But what if you want a million somethings? Then you need a new math.”
I’m not in love with the title, but here’s The Lazy Way to Success.
“If we were to graph the relationship between hard work and money we would see that the harder and more demanding the jobs, the less they pay. As effort decreases, success (as measured by money) increases. If people were remunerated based on the amount of hard work necessary to accomplish a job, physical laborers would be the richest people in society. Obviously they are not.”
April 12, 2007 at 11:59 am · Filed under learn, grist mill
I’d love to go to TED, but it sure seems like an elite group (Bono? Jeff Han? Carolyn Porco? those are some serious high profilers), and that’s a bit of a turn off. TED 2008 is already completely booked. This is a pretty compelling talk from Ken Robinson.
November 30, 2006 at 6:27 am · Filed under learn, grist mill
I was unexpectedly happy and proud to write myself my first official paycheck from my business. I shall bask in the glory of being able to pay the mortgage with my own money and not a line of credit this month. YAYUH!
After that, I hunker down and redesign my site. I connected with a CSS whiz to help me roll my own, including a groovy clickable timeline I decided I wanted for my news & events instead of a paragraph parade. Here’s a non-functioning image I made:
November 27, 2006 at 9:04 am · Filed under learn, grist mill
- http://processing.org/ A tool to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool.
- Simile: Timeline Timeline is a DHTML-based AJAXy widget for visualizing time-based events. (I want to use it to make a visual resume, and a visual News & Events record for my Creativity Applied site I’m redesigning b/c the one I have now sucks.
- How not to kill a great idea with a crappy presentation. Added to my wishlist.
November 2, 2006 at 10:34 am · Filed under learn
A Bloom Diagram that provides a visualization of contribution activity in open source projects. Here are the 6 steps of constructing one:
October 26, 2006 at 4:29 pm · Filed under learn
“The Earth’s ecology is seriously under threat as a result of humanity being out of time and out of balance with nature. By paying attention to the Moon we can begin to learn about the rhythms and forces that have shaped our past and will determine our future. We can reconnect with a slower cyclical notion of time more in keeping with ourselves and our natural environment.”
What a COOL project.
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