thought – Page 379

If you do something that you’re proud of, that someone else understands, that is a thing of beauty that wasn’t there before – you can’t beat that.

Teller (of Penn and Teller)

The Christian Colonies | Quiche Moraine

And thus it is that, while many of the original colonies were founded as Christian colonies, not all of them were. More importantly, when the time came to model our country’s religious character on all of the colonial experiments that had taken place, we chose the experiment that had worked.

We chose to not become a Christian nation.

Fascinating argument against the idea that this nation was founded by Christians, who imbued our founding documents with a belief in a solely Christian understanding of God. The back and forth in the comments is equally enlightening.

About Blank notebook | Minimal Goods

Once you open the package and remove the cover, you cannot find any identifier, such as logo or web site address. Therefore, About Blank notebook has no pre-determined front or back, top or bottom.

Smart. (via Rands)

Put This On • Start by simplifying.

Do you want to know how to start looking better? Simplify.

Guys, you would do well in any clothing store if this was your only cheat sheet.

Utility Journal: Tip Sheet: Tea

There are plenty of reasons to drink tea, and knowledge is power when it comes to getting the best from your own. So in this first Tip Sheet article, we’ve compiled a concise round-up of useful information about earth’s second favorite beverage (water is the first).

Some really good, succinct information, about something I have been wanting to know more about. Really great. (via Chris Bowler)

It doesn’t matter if you’re a writer or a baker. When the mood strikes you and you find you can suddenly make things happen, do everything to stay in that mood. Create, build, bake. You can always rework later.

Randy Murray

Inside the City’s Last Silent Place | The New York Observer

Writers need neutral rooms in which to work, not spaces that burden inhabitants with the pressure to generate anecdotes. “You hardly ever see anyone else’s face-quite literally,” said Megan Hustad, author of How to Be Useful. “That sensory deprivation trains the imagination.”

Interesting short writeup about the secret room in New York’s central library reserved for working published writers. You need a keycard to access and there is no wifi. Sounds like a dream. (via Coudal)

My love affair with timur (or how to cook a Nepali village feast) – Boing Boing

Curry Without Worry is a unique soup kitchen. Its meals are premised not just on filling empty stomachs but on the Nepali village tradition of spreading love through food. “We’re all going to die one day, and when we do, we will take nothing with us,” says Kushal Basnyat, one of its board members. “So why don’t we share everything?” The program is in its third year, and every week, it manages to feed about 200 people.

Interesting story, recipes, and a lesson on compassion. What is not to love about this post?

Screen Reading

With all of the recent hype around studies that purport to suggest that reading on a screen (iPad, Kindle, etc.) is somehow inferior to reading a physical book, I feel it important to link to a couple of counter arguments.

First, in Reading in a Whole New Way, Kevin Kelly makes some compelling statements on the way that the “people of the screen” not only read more but write more as well:

The amount of time people spend reading has almost tripled since 1980. By 2008 more than a trillion pages were added to the World Wide Web, and that total grows by several billion a day. Each of these pages was written by somebody. Right now ordinary citizens compose 1.5 million blog posts per day. Using their thumbs instead of pens, young people in college or at work around the world collectively write 12 billion quips per day from their phones. More screens continue to swell the volume of reading and writing.

Then, in Yes, People Still Read, but Now It’s Social by Steven Johnson writing for the New York Times, takes up issue with the assertion made by Nicolas Carr in The Shallows that the new hyperconnectedness is somehow making us more shallow. less contemplative, and, spare for better words “stupid”:

Mr. Carr spends a great deal of his book’s opening section convincing us that new forms of media alter the way the brain works, which I suspect most of his readers have long ago accepted as an obvious truth. The question is not whether our brains are being changed. (Of course new experiences change your brain — that’s what experience is, on some basic level.) The question is whether the rewards of the change are worth the liabilities.

As for me, I’m still on the fence about how I feel. Ultimately, I think that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. In fact, it must, as we are all far enough down the path of an age where the larger portion of the reading we will do is short form and on a screen as opposed to a book. That said, I likely read more now than I did before this time. The iPad, due to it’s larger display, has actually increased that. Not only this but a book, due to my need to have uninterrupted focus for prolonged periods of time, has a much higher barrier to entry for me. Therefore, I am far more picky and my expectations for reward through gratification are equally as high.

That said, is my ability to focus, and the time it takes me, getting only worsened by the fact I do it less? Also the fact that I read short form writing far more? These are important questions to which I do not have the answer. That said, it is something I will now be much more mindful of as I engage the two options.

Independence.