more ...We call them hobbies, avocations, callings, passions. These are the noninstrumental activities that help to define us. They reward us with character because they involve an encounter with meaningful resistance — with nature’s laws, with the limits of our own bodies — as in carving wood, melding raw ingredients, fixing a …
Who reads poetry anyway? Only other poets.
(Blake Andrews, during an interview with Bryan Formhals)
It is a strange place to be, this one where I am now. My passion and love for photographs (taking them, editing and discussing and commenting) is something in between two sides that I see …
more ...Months ago I asked the OTP community about their online reading habits. I mentioned my favourite blogs and briefly discussed my main concern which is: is online reading just a filler, sort of reading your twitter feed when you're bored1?
Anyway, my idea is that yes, books give you …
more ...In other words: good reasons to avoid using "Ph.D" and other titles appended to your email.
From an article on the New York Times about the latest Spider-Man movie (the one filmed by Marc Webb):
more ...Gwen Stacy asks Peter Parker if he likes branzino: you know, “Like, the fish …
Si tratta probabilmente dell'unica mostra a cui vado volentieri. È a Milano fino al 18 dicembre, ed è scontato consigliarlo a tutti gli appassionati di fotografia.
Rispetto all'edizione del 2009 che vidi a Londra, le foto qui sono stampate e non visualizzate su pannelli LCD retroilluminati; all'epoca mi colpì molto …
more ...Emphasis is mine:
more ...Shoot from the hip and sort it out later in Photoshop; this is a slippery slope plunging inevitably towards the depths of despair and devastating loss of self-esteem that comes with shooting on program mode with a high ISO, no tripod and a reversed lens hood. The …
A comment on Italians' ability to manage confusion:
the Italians broke the laws of physics and created instant order out of utter disorder and chaos. We were waved and whistled by the police, straight through to the start area.
About cyclists (especially roadies) shaving their legs:
more ...In fact, it was …
This is so good it's a shame it lies forgotten in an old issue of DirtRag.
Source: DirtRag issue 145, october 2009.
more ...A 1945 video on Raleigh bicycles, worth watching for historical reasons but also for something that the speaker says towards the end of the movie (around the 16'45" mark):
more ...[...] There are bicycles for all purposes, suitable for men, women boys and girls. A bycicle is a comfortable and cheap way …
So true:
more ...Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives …
Ho scoperto un sito fantastico, di quelli che ti fanno riscoprire quanto Internet possa ancora essere fonte di meraviglie.
Si chiama Brain Pickings ed è come se fossero i ritagli di giornale che vorresti mettere da parte; parla di creatività, di scienza, di filosofia, di psicologia; parla di qualsiasi argomento …
more ..."Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a …
more ..."The codex is built for nonlinear reading — not the way a Web surfer does it, aimlessly questing from document to document, but the way a deep reader does it, navigating the network of internal connections that exists within a single rich document like a novel."
-- The Mechanic Muse — From Scroll …
more ..."I was out running errands today, walking through the city. I remembered, a mile away from home, that a screw had fallen out of my wife’s favorite eyeglasses over the weekend, and that she was waiting for me to fix them. Walking down a city street, I said, “Remind …
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