nedhepburn:

nevver:

Six Tips on Writing from John Steinbeck

1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.
5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.
6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

‘Cannery Row’ is one of the best books, and ‘Of Mice & Men’ can make a grown man cry. Steinbeck was a legend. Also; the third point here is vital, stellar advice.

theatlantic:

Adulthood, Delayed: What Has the Recession Done to Millennials?

Generations are social constructs. There is no chemical or biological difference between Gen-Xers and Millennials, but we talk about them as if they were different species. That Gen-Xers grew up “independent” and Millennials grew up “entitled” aren’t anthropological observations. Rather, they’re marginally useful stereotypes. If it’s true that members of a certain age group have commonalities that they don’t fully share with older or younger groups, this isn’t the result of generational determinism. It’s just circumstance.

The circumstances surrounding the Millennial generation are particularly strange. Many came of age in the longest economic expansion of the 20th century and graduated into the worst recession since the 1930s. The abrupt contraction of opportunity has left a mark. Unemployment among 18- to 24-year-olds was 16% in 2011, twice as high as the national average. Median earnings fell more for the young than any other cohort, and college debt, most of which is held by 20-somethings, is at an all-time high.

With education comes opportunity. That’s the deal, as this generation understood it. Now, they’re the highest-educated generation in American history, and they’ve graduated into … this.

When adults wonder what’s the matter with the Millennial generation that has increasingly chosen to live with their parents and put off marriage and homeownership, the first thing to say is that they’re using the word “chosen” wrong. Nobody chose this. The economy chose for them.

Read more. [Image: Scarleth White/Flickr]

fastcompany:

America is changing how it works. As more people start their own entrepreneurial businesses out of their bedrooms, it is time to rethink how we divide work and living? This new home design makes space for both.

LiveWork: The Future Of Living Where You Work And Working Where You Live

parislemon:

Fantastic post on the joys of not drinking by Darius Monsef.

emergentfutures:

MIT body suit helps you feel old

“AGNES, theAge Gain Now Empathy System, a suit designed to help wearers understand the physical ramifications of neglecting our bodies for decades on end. (AGNES is meant to emulate a 75-year-old with arthritis and diabetes.)”

Full Story: CNET

thedailyfeed:

One in six American adults is a binge drinker, consuming alcohol in excess about four times a month, according to a sobering CDC report. In the infographic above, you’ll find the percentage of population classified as binge drinkers.

The study — which defines binge drinking as five or more drinks in a short period of time for men and four or more for women — breaks down the nation’s 38 million binge drinkers by a variety of measures, including geography, age and income level. Wisconsin is the state with the most binge drinkers at 25 percent of the population, while Utah, home to the teetotaling Mormon church, comes in last at less than 11 percent.

NPR - Russia by Rail - Freeze Frame-Photographs by David Gilkey/NPR

When photographing the Trans-Siberian railway, which has a history dating back a century, it was natural to drift back in time and imagine taking a trip like this while carrying tripods; big, heavy cameras; and lots of film — and not just throwing a couple of extra memory cards in your bag.

Taking pictures in the first part of the 20th century required packing a lot of unwieldy gear, complete with shiny wood, fragrant chemicals and a bit of magic. But in our digital age, are we trading convenience for the romance of the journey?

To help answer that question, we approached some folks at The Impossible Project, a group that describes itself as “producing new instant film materials for classic Polaroid cameras.” Their film works just like the old SX-70 Polaroids you may recall from your youth — if you are old enough. When Polaroid stopped making film for those cameras a few years ago, The Impossible Project stepped in and created their new film from the ground up.

The look of their film has more in common with photography of the 1920s and ’30s than with the polished and perfected Polaroid film packs of the late ’90s. But this film proved challenging to transport: It required lead-lined bags to protect it against damage at airport X-ray machines. And it wasn’t convenient to use — it turns out the film gets balky when the temperatures are below zero degrees Fahrenheit. Still, it was picture-perfect for this epic trip.

The wintry landscapes, rendered in muted blacks, browns and grays, evoke an earlier time; one before computer-driven cameras and picture-taking cellphones. These are photographs you can touch and smell and share, hand to hand, among your new traveling companions.

nprradiopictures:

Take A Picture, Pass It On: The Disposable Memory Project  

“It’s a simple concept: Drop a camera somewhere with basic instructions and see where the wind takes it. If things go right, a person takes a photo and passes it on. And at the end, the camera makes its way back to the address written on the exterior and everyone is happy…”

emergentfutures:

These are my comments. If you are interested in the original post you can see it at:

A Nobel Prize winner takes on Jim Collins and the business book industry

Paul Higgins:

Hi Chris

I am reading Kahneman’s book at the moment as well. I think his key contention is that we are hard wired to look for patterns in a way that worked for us in our older evolutionary challenges but our world is now very different and therefore we must be cautious in interpreting our conclusions. In our work we are always trying to work with people to understand where their assumptions and blind spots are and non causal pattern mistakes are one of the most common

I would certainly read the Halo Effect before coming to a conclusion. My view is that it should be required reading for all people thinking about business strategy. As an example of the analysis done the author followed up on “Built to Last” and showed that in 5 years after the study finished 9 out the 17 companies picked trailed the market average on a total shareholder return basis and 10 out of 16 trailed over 10 years (P98 in my hardback version). The author makes the point that Built to Last was supposed to be identifying timeless principles but they did not apply to these companies in the next 10 years. You can argue that might be the wrong time frame but then the same can then be applied to the original argument. I think that the key points are:

1/ That we analyse success retrospectively through rose coloured glasses. The comments on Steve Jobs above resonate on that basis. Plenty of businesses that have gone badly have been blamed on autocratic micro- managers.

2/That a lot of the writing around this area is dressed up as research and reinforced by describing the masses of data analysed which is irrelevant if the method is not scientific and rigorous.

3/That telling inspiring and emotional stories that illustrates a point that is actually not true is at best disingenuous and at its worst the method of charlatans and con men.

4/ That even if the analysis is good (and I think a lot of it is not) then it is historical and we need to think differently about the future.

Phi Rozenzweig does make the point that Jim Collins gets paid a lot more to talk to companies and conferences than he does!!

In the end you cannot study these sorts of things in quite the same way as true scientific method (which is my background and training). That means that we should recognise the weakness and be extremely cautious about any conclusions we adopt or spend time and energy on.

Paul