Showing posts with label read. Show all posts
Showing posts with label read. Show all posts
§4. Read Write eXecute Archive
Read your notes, your field, your surrounding, into your heart. Write about, on, over, and through it because you like it. Execute what you avowed, noted, edited, written, and much everything else. Archive elsewhere, anyhow, anywhere that brings you closer to peace.
§6. Reading Tip
When facing an infinite text,
mathematicians suggest
to read it in diagonal.
Some say this might apply to streams
Of rivers of online text.
Do we really want content?
§20. Write First
So you want to become a writer. Why don't you start by writing, then? If you love to write, write and find the joy in writing. Never mind about what one must write. Consider this as an abstract task: just start to write. When the head empties itself, when preoccupations kick it, then get up and celebrate your freedom to rejoice over your life, by walking, singing, cooking, meditating. Or just go read something. And when on an idle, do the opposite: start by reading something. Sit back and let yourself spectate the world of works. You'll soon realize that when you start your day by reading, you're not really working.
§57. Drinking and Driving a Novel
Is your eventual posterity really worth a pound of liver?
Source: http://eyeonspringfield.tumblr.com/post/2159278933
Source: http://eyeonspringfield.tumblr.com/post/2159278933
Reading Tabs
Look at your browser. Yes, the one you're using to read this post. See all the tabs open.
Close the tabs that you have forgotten to close. Good. How many are there, now?
Let's say you're like me: there must be plenty left. As I am writing, I have seven, admittingly after having closed a few beforehand.
These tabs show how many projects lie in your near future. Each page under these tabs might ideally get read. Each one burdens you with a kind of reading debt.
As tabs accumulate, bankrupcy awaits, where nothing gets read and every pages become anxiously dismissed.
Close the tabs that you have forgotten to close. Good. How many are there, now?
Let's say you're like me: there must be plenty left. As I am writing, I have seven, admittingly after having closed a few beforehand.
These tabs show how many projects lie in your near future. Each page under these tabs might ideally get read. Each one burdens you with a kind of reading debt.
As tabs accumulate, bankrupcy awaits, where nothing gets read and every pages become anxiously dismissed.
Shaw on Reading
Quite plausibly, George Bernard said:
A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
Over the Internet
You came here roving over the Internet. You are looking for something. Anything that could attract your attention, if only for a brief moment.
Your attention spans over the Internet and focuses here, now. Chances are you were not looking to read this. Perhaps are you wondering where this is leading. Perhaps do you keep reading because the words are calming, or amusing.
For this moment, over the Internet, your eyes are gleaming, the blood is rushing upward. Your mind is actively seeking something, anything. It distracts itself from your body, which becomes numb, combersome, forgotten.
Your attention spans over the Internet and focuses here, now. Chances are you were not looking to read this. Perhaps are you wondering where this is leading. Perhaps do you keep reading because the words are calming, or amusing.
For this moment, over the Internet, your eyes are gleaming, the blood is rushing upward. Your mind is actively seeking something, anything. It distracts itself from your body, which becomes numb, combersome, forgotten.
Sliders
One has to really hate to scroll down a page. Nobody reads scrolls anymore. Scrolls are so 5000 BC.
One has to really like sliders. Sliders rocks. Flipping through, without any real focus, magazine pages, television channels, one click at a time.
Sliding changes the default behaviour of the Internet reader. He does not need to understand anything, like when he decides to click on a link. The Internet reader just needs to sit back and slide.
Inspired by www.therulesofagentleman.com
One has to really like sliders. Sliders rocks. Flipping through, without any real focus, magazine pages, television channels, one click at a time.
Sliding changes the default behaviour of the Internet reader. He does not need to understand anything, like when he decides to click on a link. The Internet reader just needs to sit back and slide.
Inspired by www.therulesofagentleman.com
A Web Reader
A web reader (like Google Reader) has now become necessary. Whatever gets published that does not go through a reader is not read, almost ipso facto. The debate between wikis and blogs is settled: blogs win, at least for anything except Wikipedia.
Bedtime Story
A man picks up a book. He sits and starts to read. He falls on a paragraph about symmetry. He does not quite understand it, but finds it very beautiful, remarkably evocative. The man imagines himself gathering notes about his readings about symmetry. Then he stands up, flushes the toilet, washes his hands, brushes his teeth, and goes to sleep.
Soon afterwards, he notes his impression to have a mind as thick as a brick.
Soon afterwards, he notes his impression to have a mind as thick as a brick.
Read This!
No need for fancy stuff to bookmark future reading: mail yourself a reminder. It only takes a few clicks with a a bookmarklet (e.g. "Gmail This!"). There are good reasons to use emails.
First, reading emails is mandatory. Second, having too much "Read this!" emails shows that one surfs too much. Third, that leaves browsers' bookmarks to essential bookmarks. Fourth, social bookmarking accounts can be kept for projects.
First, reading emails is mandatory. Second, having too much "Read this!" emails shows that one surfs too much. Third, that leaves browsers' bookmarks to essential bookmarks. Fourth, social bookmarking accounts can be kept for projects.
Meditating layout
Without CSS.
Without specific fonts.
Without a computer. Phone.
Without colors.
Without your browser.
Without patience.
Without context.
Without seeing images.
Aknowledgements. I would like to thank René Descartes for his ever lasting collaboration.
Without specific fonts.
Without a computer. Phone.
Without colors.
Without your browser.
Without patience.
Without context.
Without seeing images.
Aknowledgements. I would like to thank René Descartes for his ever lasting collaboration.
Joy of Division
What is this? What do I do with it? When would I process it? How does it work? Where does it lead? Why would I care? Do I like it?
Content and Presentation
The injunction to separate content from presentation is idealistic at best.
The very concept of content is misleading. Talking about content, communication gurus refer to text. But text is not content. Content alludes to some kind of objective meaning, which can be thought outside this world, or inside the head, like some kind of mentalese. In any case, the very idea of content is problematic, from a philosophical point of view.
A content management system is mostly a shovelware, an assistant that shovels texts from a media (e.g. notebook) to another (e.g. internet). What is kept under control is not the presentation, nor the texts, but the very idea of controlling anything right from the start. Presentation, in this context, entails all the structure, including the navigation system.
A CMS helps writing because writing suffices to get going. But that does not get us very far : it lasts for a while, until the load of texts bend and break the first structural choices. Tweaking the structure entails having a second look at the texts as a whole.
Texts depends on their presentation to work, and their presentation details depend on the texts. So presentation and content are co-dependencies. They should be separated, but kept very close one to another.
The very concept of content is misleading. Talking about content, communication gurus refer to text. But text is not content. Content alludes to some kind of objective meaning, which can be thought outside this world, or inside the head, like some kind of mentalese. In any case, the very idea of content is problematic, from a philosophical point of view.
A content management system is mostly a shovelware, an assistant that shovels texts from a media (e.g. notebook) to another (e.g. internet). What is kept under control is not the presentation, nor the texts, but the very idea of controlling anything right from the start. Presentation, in this context, entails all the structure, including the navigation system.
A CMS helps writing because writing suffices to get going. But that does not get us very far : it lasts for a while, until the load of texts bend and break the first structural choices. Tweaking the structure entails having a second look at the texts as a whole.
Texts depends on their presentation to work, and their presentation details depend on the texts. So presentation and content are co-dependencies. They should be separated, but kept very close one to another.
Hoare on Method
Food for thought. << Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out.>> << There are two ways of constructing a software design: one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. >> << How could one person ever understand the whole of a modern software product? >>
Many on Method
Any given program, when running, is obsolete. If a program is useless, it will have to be documented. If a program is useful, it will have to be changed. Any program will expand to fill any available memory. The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer to maintain it. Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find that programmers cannot write in English. If computers get too powerful, organize them into a committee and that will do them in. If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
Review Readings
Only a small part of the readings need to be reviewed. There is a reason to keep track only what needs to be reviewed. Not everything that is read should be noted. Bad readings must be forgotten. Not every bad one, but most of them.
No need to keep note of annoying annotators.
No need to keep note of annoying annotators.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)