Clipmarks | kore7's clips

Mapping Kerouac: The Grammatical Artwork of Stefanie Posavec

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 01:14:40 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Posavec dissects every word, phrase, sentence, and subject of Kerouac's On the Road to invent new ways of looking at the familiar masterpiece. The diagrams make for beautiful art in their own right. (See source for high-res pictures.)

In her structure analysis, each chapter explodes in a color-coded starburst of topical breakdowns. At a glance, you can see Kerouac's focus wander from the sketches of local life in the beginning, to depictions of work and travel in the middle, with women and the subject of love dominating the latter chapters.

The comparative sentence diagrams are what really drew me in. It's fascinating to behold an entire literary work all at once on one page. What's more, Kerouac's casual prose style can be differentiated immediately from the stately, grandiose writing of Faulkner, not to mention the terse, claustrophobic style of Orwell's fiction.

Literary reductionism at its most fun and beautiful.

Clip Source: www.notcot.com

Stefanie’s maps capture something above and beyond that of the others. Rather than mapping physical geography, her maps capture regularities and patterns within a literary space.

The maps visually represent the rhythm and structure of Kerouac’s literary space, creating works that are not only gorgeous from the point of view of graphic design, but also exhibit scientific rigor and precision in their formulation: meticulous scouring the surface of the text, highlighting and noting sentence length, prosody and themes, Posavec’s approach to the text is not unlike that of a surveyor.

Tags: art, artwork, literature, kerouac, grammar, map

Political Junkies: Why it Feels Good to Be an Extremist

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:28:12 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: In The Political Brain, psychologist Drew Western summarizes fMRI experiments exploring the neuro-psychology of systematic bias and rationalization in the brains of political extremists. Finding ways to dismiss contradictory evidence triggers pleasant emotional releases in partisans' brains, eventually becoming a pleasurable, learned behavior.

Once partisans had found a way to reason to false conclusions, not only did neural circuits involved in negative emotions turn off, but circuits involved in positive emotions turned on.

The partisan brain didn't seem satisfied in just feeling better. It worked overtime to feel good, activating reward circuits that give partisans a jolt of positive reinforcement for their biased "reasoning."

These reward circuits overlap substantially with those activated when drug addicts get their "fix," giving new meaning to the term political junkie.
Clip Source: daily.sightline.org
How is it that even smart people can ignore a pile of evidence that contradicts their deeply-held beliefs. Why is it I get a rush when I'm making fun of a politician I don't agree with -- even if it's his flubs or quirks I'm mocking, not necessarily his ideas?
According to the research of Drew Western, political partisans -- and especially the smart, well-informed ones -- not only feel better when their brains downplay contradictory political information, they actually get a little emotional "high" when the brain (unconsciously) rejects evidence that contradicts their deeply held political beliefs.
In a series of brain scans of political partisans asked to consider contradictory statements by the politicians they supported, Western found that the brain reverted to the comfort zone of its long-held biases -- and doing so actually made people feel good.

Tags: science, politics, neuroscience, psychology, brain, reason, extremism, bias, beliefs

How To Think

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 17:52:35 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: With the internet saturating ever deeper into our busy lives, humans are navigating uncharted informational and attentional waters these days. MIT neuroengineer, Ed Boyden, put together these rules of thumb to managing brain resources in an age of complexity.

7. Make your mistakes quickly. You may mess things up on the first try, but do it fast, and then move on. Document what led to the error so that you learn what to recognize, and then move on. Get the mistakes out of the way. As Shakespeare put it, "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."

(Via Kottke.)

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

1. Synthesize new ideas constantly. Never read passively. Annotate, model, think, and synthesize while you read

2. Learn how to learn (rapidly). One of the most important talents for the 21st century is the ability to learn almost anything instantly, so cultivate this talent.

3. Work backward from your goal. Or else you may never get there. If you work forward, you may invent something profound--or you might not.

4. Always have a long-term plan. Even if you change it every day. The act of making the plan alone is worth it.

6. Collaborate.

8. As you develop skills, write up best-practices protocols. That way, when you return to something you've done, you can make it routine. Instinctualize conscious control.

9. Document everything obsessively. If you don't record it, it may never have an impact on the world.

10. Keep it simple. If it looks like something hard to engineer, it probably is. If you can spend two days thinking of ways to make it 10 times simpler, do it.

Tags: howto, guide, advice, think, brain, mind, goals, life

How To Tell If You're Being Followed

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:24:33 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Are you being tailed? How do you know what to look out for? Use this handy guide to see if they're really watching you or if it's all in your head.

If you want to identify a tail, look at their shoes: they are hard to change. Move frequently between crowded and empty places: this forces them to keep closing for fear of losing you, drawing back, then closing again. This makes them conspicuous. But don't jump on or off trains just before the doors close--that's for the movies; and anyway, a good surveillance team will already have someone on the train, as well as on the platform.

(Via Jason Kottke.)

Clip Source: www.moreintelligentlife.com

So, you think you're being followed.

Two questions: first, who do you think you are? Are you really so secret and important that someone is prepared to spend time and money watching where you're going?

Second, is there someone out there who very badly wants to know what you're doing, who believes that surveillance is the only way to find out, and who is able to follow you themselves or pay someone else to? Unless such a person or organisation exists, forget it.

But if all that does apply to you, how might you tell you're being followed? Don't bother looking for men with turned-up collars, who peer round corners or keep tying their shoelaces. Real surveillants will never be seen doing anything odd; they are chameleons who strive to look ordinary, matching whatever environment they're in.

f you must check for surveillance, don't keep glancing over your shoulder. Appearing to suspect you're being followed suggests you're doing something to merit it.

The Bush Tragedy

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:54:56 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Jacob Weisberg uncovers the twisted, storied (and thoroughly American) histories behind the pedigreed, genteel Bush and the brash, opulent Walker clans, whose 1921 marriage-merger generated unparalleled political fame and fortune, producing an "exploding blob" of successful, well-heeled, multi-named white men—culminating, of course, in the 41st and 43rd presidents of the United States.

A product of his Ivy League upbringing, academic and corporate shortcomings, and unseemly familial wranglings, Weisberg traces the root cause of W.'s presidential failings to his life-long jealousy of his father's successes and petulant opposition to everything the reserved, prudent, self-deprecating patriarch represented.

It's a fascinating character study as well as a sad tale of hubris, backstabbing, and inescapable downfall, magnified by his position as leader of the free world.

Clip Source: www.npr.org

Excerpt: 'The Bush Tragedy'

by Jacob Weisberg

Having an ordinary three names instead of a pretentious four helps to answer the implication George W. Bush most resents, that he arrived in the White House with the help of such un-American principles as primogeniture, dynasty, and aristocracy.

Though he can hardly cultivate a log cabin myth, this Bush has long thought of himself as a Texan rather than a New Englander, an entrepreneur rather than a beneficiary of inherited wealth, and the opposite of any kind of snob.

Distinctions he draws with his preppie father are central to his personal and political identity.

Through his manners, tastes, and beliefs, George W. Bush places himself about as far as it is possible to get from his New England patrimony. He shows no sign of thinking or caring much about his ancestry, never discusses it in public, and seems not even to know much about it.

Tags: bush, george bush, president, tragedy, failure, history, america, politics, family, father

How to Write Aphorisms

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:43:09 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

Delacroix, Eugene (France, 1798-1863)

To be a poet at twenty is to be twenty; to be a poet at forty is to be a poet.

According to James Geary, editor of the compendium Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists, a truely memorable, quotable aphorism satisfies five laws:

It must be brief. It must be definitive. It must be personal — that's the difference between an aphorism and a proverb. It must be philosophical — that's the difference between an aphorism and a platitude, which is not philosophical....

And the fifth law is it must have a twist. And that can be either a linguistic twist or a psychological twist or even a twist in logic that somehow flips the reader into a totally unexpected place.

Now you know, so get to work!

Clip Source: www.npr.org

Hubbard, Frank McKinney (United States, 1868-1930)

A good listener is usually thinking about something else.

Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet.

Roosevelt, Eleanor (United States, 1884-1962)

A woman is like a teabag — only in hot water do you realize how strong she is.

Tutu, Desmond (South Africa, 1931- )

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

Bunsch, Karol (Poland, 1898-1987)

Honest conceit is better than false modesty.

Morandotti, Alessandro (Italy, 1909-1979)

The kiss is an ingenious invention that prevents lovers from uttering too many inanities.

You recognize a true friend by how he lies to you.

Chekhov, Anton (Russia, 1860-1904)

Any idiot can face a crisis. It is this day-to-day living that wears you out.

Sato, Issai (Japan, 1772-1859)

There are always people who make big declarations. These are always people of little consequence.

Tags: aphorisms, writing, history, quotes, pithy, how-to, be famous!

The Soul of the Commuter

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 19:28:08 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

Roughly one out of every six American workers commutes more than forty-five minutes, each way. People travel between counties the way they used to travel between neighborhoods.

Until recently, I was one of these Americans. What started out as an invigorating drive through new urban environs eventually became repetitious and wearisome. Even though I was careful to fill my time with music, podcasts, audio-books, or phone calls, I don't miss this daily aggravation at all now, instead embracing the freedom public transportation confers. (Trains can be your friends...who knew? .)

The mental relaxation that comes with not being on constant heightened alert for all the unpredictable hazards is priceless and has returned a small measure of serenity to my life I thought I had lost.

What do clippers think? Are extended commutes worth their return? Given its finite supply, shouldn't most of us be valuing our precious time higher?

Clip Source: www.newyorker.com

Some take on long commutes by choice, and some out of necessity, although the difference between one and the other can be hard to discern. A commute is a distillation of a life’s main ingredients, a product of fundamental values and choices. And time is the vital currency: how much of it you spend—and how you spend it—reveals a great deal about how much you think it is worth.

Commuting is an exercise in repetition. The will to efficiency varies, but it expresses itself in the hardening of commuters’ habits, as they seek to alleviate the dissipation of time and sanity. Some people travel with coffee; they have a place to buy it, a preferred approach to not spilling it, a manner of discarding the cup.

You can spot the novice: he’s rifling through pockets in search of his ticket, coffee bubbling up out the pinprick holes of his flattop lid, leading him to wonder how it is possible for the coffee to be leaking when the top is on tight. He has no strategy for newsprint stain.

Tags: commute, career, work, sprawl, urban, cities, transportation, time, economics, planning

How to Brood

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:35:24 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Tom Chiarella might be my favorite author to clip, not only because of the originality of his topics but because of his pithy, honest terseness and his wry approach to modern life.

Now pardon me while I mull over what all this implies about me, Clipmarks, and the entire history of humanity alone in a corner somewhere....

Some people are smart. They stay away. You might call this respect. Others are pathological in their worry. "Why so glum?" they ask. Or "How you doing, big guy?" And just because they won't honor my need to be alone in public, to stretch around inside the muscle of my worry, or respect the fact that a smile is sometimes just a tiresome, mawkish mask, I flat-out lie. I tell them I'm doing fine. Jim Dandy. Then I smile and wait for a good moment to turn back to my troubles -- which now include the fact that some jackass thinks it's okay to call me "big guy."

Clip Source: www.esquire.com

It's not quite moping, it's not quite dwelling. It's brooding. And sometimes it's exactly what a man needs to do.

I'd give you a list of my troubles, but then you'd e-mail me solutions, and I hate that. See, I think about my troubles. I sit in the corner of a coffee shop and think as hard as I can. Sometimes I'll do it at my desk or as I'm walking. I shut the world out. I brood. And I like it.

When people approach me, I stare at them in the most neutral way I can. Blank. This seems to offend some, mostly those who see every moment as some light socket of human engagement that you'd better darned-well stay plugged in to if you want to get the most out of life. But a deep brood lets me sink the grappling hooks into jealousy, anger, and bitterness before I speak again. New-agers tell you this stuff eats you up, so give me time to let it go, my way. I don't need forever. Just a few minutes.

Tags: brood, men, advice, life, howto, think, deep, thoughts

On Architecture and Elegance

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 04:58:35 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

[Maillart's] bridge is endowed with a subcategory of beauty we can refer to as elegance, a quality present whenever a work of architecture succeeds in carrying out an act of resistance—holding, spanning, sheltering—with grace and economy as well as strength; when it has the modesty not to draw attention to the difficulties it has surmounted.

From philosophical historian Alain de Botton's inimitable The Architecture of Happiness, itself a paradigmatic illustration of the aesthetic elegance of well-engineered minimalism (be it architectural or textual).

The NYRB's synopsis of de Botton's work makes note of this:

The simplicity of his writing is not the product of a simple mind....

In The Consolations of Philosophy (2000) he remarked that "there are...no legitimate reasons why books in the humanities should be difficult or boring; wisdom does not require a specialized vocabulary or syntax."

Clip Source: www.joelonsoftware.com

Both Robert Maillart’s Salginatobel and Isambard Brunel’s Clifton Suspension bridges are structures of strength; both attract our veneration for carrying us safely across a fatal drop—and yet Maillart’s bridge is the more beautiful of the pair for the exceptionally nimble, apparently effortless way in which it carries out its duty.

With its ponderous masonry and heavy steel chains, Brunel’s construction has something to it of a stocky middle-aged man who hoists his trousers and loudly solicits the attention of others before making a jump between two points

Clip Source: www.bristoljpg.co.uk

Clip Source: www.joelonsoftware.com

whereas Maillart’s bridge resembles a lithe athlete who leaps without ceremony and bows demurely to his audience before leaving the stage.

Clip Source: www.greatbuildings.com

Clip Source: www.joelonsoftware.com

Both bridges accomplish daring feats, but Maillart’s possesses the added virtue of making its achievement look effortless—and because we sense it isn’t, we wonder at it and admire it all the more.

Tags: architecture, elegance, bridges, bulidings, beauty, engineering, design, simplicity

How Do You Psyche Yourself? Up? Or Out?

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 18:37:44 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

The moral of the story? No matter how high you jump, how fast you run or swim, how powerfully you row, you can do better. But sometimes your mind gets in the way.

“All maximum performances are actually pseudo-maximum performances,” Dr. Morgan said. “You are always capable of doing more than you are doing.”

From an article on how athletes trick their brains into letting them achieve what their bodies are capable of. I think this anecdote perfectly encapsulates what makes pushing one's personal boundaries so maddening yet rewarding. If I had more time, I would come up with some witty, insightful comments right about here, but I'm afraid I need to run (for work, unfortunately, not for pleasure). Anyone else have some thoughts?

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

BILL MORGAN, an emeritus professor of kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin, likes to tell the story, which he swears is true, of an Ivy League pole vaulter who held the Division 1 record in the Eastern region.

His coaches and teammates, though, noticed that he could jump even higher. Every time he cleared the pole, he had about a foot to spare. But if they moved the bar up even an inch, the vaulter would hit it every time. One day, when the vaulter was not looking, his teammates raised the bar a good six inches. The man vaulted over it, again with a foot to spare.

When his teammates confessed, the pole vaulter could not believe it. But, Dr. Morgan added, “once he saw what he had done, he walked away from the jumping pit and never came back.”

After all, Dr. Morgan said, everyone would expect him to repeat that performance. And how could he?

Tags: psychology, sports, life, achievment, brain, mind, thinking, how to, running

Social Networking for Zebras

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 16:00:03 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Ecologists have turned to computer scientists to develop dynamic graphs of social behavior among Zebra populations, revealing why some are thriving while others are endangered:

The difference showed that the Grevy's zebras tended to hang out in cliques, whereas the onagers spent time with different buddies on different days.

The methods developed turn out to applicable to human networks, too:

In the meantime, Berger-Wolf is testing her methods on other datasets, including the records of e-mails exchanged at Enron that became available after they were subpoenaed. She has found some surprising connections between the two kinds of networks.

"We can see that our method to detect when a lion was in the area of zebras detects very well when the subpoena was issued at Enron," she says. When faced with a lion, the zebras flee and follow one lead zebra. Similarly, after the subpoena was issued, e-mail traffic to the lawyers increased dramatically.

Clip Source: www.sciencenews.org

Facebook hasn't yet opened up a site for zebras. Even so, social networking is taking off for them, too. By using social network theory to understand how zebras interact, scientists hope to explain why the plains zebra is thriving while the Grevy's zebra is endangered.

This graph depicts the social relationships among zebras in a group. Each circle represents a zebra, and the lines connect zebras that spent time together. The graph reveals that many of the zebras hang out together in a single group, while a few of the zebras form smaller communities.

This graph shows a dynamic version of the network graphed in the first image. Each row shows all the zebras that have been detected at a particular moment, with each circle representing an individual zebra. The vertical lines connect an individual zebra to itself over time. Zebras in the same community appear in the same color.

This zebra is wearing a wireless GPS tracking collar.

Tags: zebra, zebras, network, networking, social, behavior, ecology, biology, africa, graph

Why America Will Survive George W. Bush

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 14:53:01 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

Otto von Bismarck saw how American blunders led to American power and allegedly said that God has a special providence for drunks, fools, and the United States of America.

Walter Russell Mead (of the Council on Foreign Relations) puts Bush's 8-year stint in the White House into proper perspective.

America's foreign policy has been short-sighted and often self-defeating from the get-go, alternately collaborative, passive, and interventionist. And, yet, miraculously, we always come out ahead.

With the unstoppable rise of a global capitalist economy, Mead makes the case that America, for all its past and current faults, will continue to be the inevitable leader of this new international buoyancy. Not even our latest mistakes (unprecedented though they may be) can derail such a powerful incentive that is the modern American world trade system.

Which means, more than ever, we're literally all in this together.

Clip Source: www.tnr.com

Failing Upward

Nothing in the field of international affairs is as scandalous and as perplexing as the fact of American power. From Revolutionary times to the present, virtually all observers foreign and domestic have agreed that Americans don't do foreign policy well.

Moralistic, uninformed, unsubtle, alternately isolationist and hyperactive, hamstrung by a clumsy constitutional process and a public that oscillates between fatuous idealism and ignorant bellicosity, U.S. foreign policy has been shocking the world for more than 200 years.

And, worse still, we win. For two centuries, the United States has astounded critics with its bad foreign policy--and, for two centuries, the United States has steadily risen to an unprecedented level of power and influence in the international system.

The spectacle is often surreal. The United States seems to wander nearsightedly but relatively unscathed past one hazard after another

like a version of the chronically oblivious cartoon character Mr. Magoo.

Tags: america, usa, bush, foreign policy, world, history, war, empire, trade, economy

Why Your Decisions are Always Right

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 09:56:20 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Why are humans so good at fooling themselves? now thats a question!

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Life is full of choices, sometimes too many choices.

Should you buy the SUV or the gas-saving hybrid car? Should you have the artery-clogging cheeseburger or the lean turkey sandwich? Sometimes we make the "right" choices, but other times we make the choices of fools. Oddly enough, those foolish choices don’t usually bother us for long. Instead, they are quickly rationalized until the guilt goes away.

Why are humans so good at fooling themselves?

Our brains, then, weren't so much designed to make choices as to pretend, no matter what, that we made the right choices. The goal seems to be mental peace; as we all know too well, the time from bad choice to righteousness is very uncomfortable and so the sooner we justify our decisions, the better.

This kind of shilly-shallying is, in fact, so prevalent in human behavior that it must have some evolutionary basis. That is, it must be advantageous. Embarrassing and annoying, but advantageous. How?

Tags: life, choices, evolution, peace, mind, rationalization, brain

French Atomic Bomb Test Photos from 1968

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:28:58 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Never-before-seen 40-year-old pictures of French atomic bomb tests have surfaced on the internet and they are simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. The epitome of historical human achievement and wanton destruction combined in one split-second.

These are four scanned pictures of hardcopies I possess of the French nuclear test codenamed Canopus, which was fired on 24th August 1968 in the Fangataufa Atoll. The French army had those pictures taken on site.

Full-size links: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Clip Source: flickr.com

This shot was taken in 1968 by the French army in the Fangataufa atoll. Codenamed Canopus, it yielded 2600 kt.

Although this picture, like many of the series, is a work of the French Army (as far as I know) this is an original scan from a hardcopy I posess, and processed to remove dust and scratches.

A strange view on such paradise-like landscapes.

Clip Source: flickr.com

Tags: bomb, atomic, nuclear, blast, mushroom, cloud, 1968, french, france, photos

The Growing Hunger for Political Shallowness

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:02:33 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Author Robert Harris has some biting words about the political situation we find ourselves in today.

Robert Harris' new novel features a once-popular former British prime minister who becomes fiercely criticized for collaborating with the United States in the war on terror. The character's name is Adam Lang, not Tony Blair, but otherwise the similarities are unmistakable.

Full interview here.

Clip Source: www.npr.org

Robert Harris: 'The Ghost' of Tony Blair

In The Ghost, Harris tells the story of a ghostwriter called in to help a former prime minister finish his multi-million-dollar memoir.

Harris, a former columnist for Sunday Times of London, has known Blair since 1992. "We had our ups and downs, but we didn't really fall out until the invasion of Iraq, which made no sense to me," Harris says.

Harris also explores the isolation and distance from reality faced by people in power.

"I think it's very, very hard not to go slightly crazy if you're in the top in politics — especially if you're there for a long time," he says.

"I don't think a lot of world leaders these days are very well-read. I don't think Mr. Blair knew very much about the Middle East. I think that he assumed that invading Iraq would be a walkover, or at least that the Americans would sort it all out.

"It's that kind of isolation and shallowness that's bred by the modern media age where we seem to have lost depth in our politicians."

Tags: politics, politicians, tony blair, blair, shallow, depth, iraq, war, media, leadership