Clipmarks | syncopath's Comments

A wandering mind able to project themselves into imaginary situations - can do important work'..

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 07:07:08 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: ...scientists are learning - and may even be essential
"Einstein, for instance, was notorious for his wandering mind ".

Clip Source: www.boston.com

A wandering mind can do important work, scientists are learning - and may even be essential

In a culture obsessed with efficiency, daydreaming is derided as a lazy habit or a lack of discipline, the kind of thinking we rely on when we don't really want to think. It's a sign of procrastination, not productivity, something to be put away with your flip-flops and hammock as summer draws to a close.

In recent years, however, scientists have begun to see the act of daydreaming very differently. They've demonstrated that daydreaming is a fundamental feature of the human mind - so fundamental, in fact, that it's often referred to as our "default" mode of thought. Many scientists argue that daydreaming is a crucial tool for creativity, a thought process that allows the brain to make new associations and connections.

If your mind didn't wander, then you'd be largely shackled to whatever you are doing right now," says Jonathan Schooler, a psychologist at the University of California,

Invisible People - All the lonely people

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:03:24 GMT

clipped by: tidbit2
clipper's remarks: I saw a tiny bit of this then my mind wandered to how its possible to overcome isolation
through the internet
for example there are loads of apps for the iphone/ipod touch that have location aware social networking which in a city area the possibility of making connections would be massive I presume.
If we could make this type of technology available more widely say in libraries or even community iniatives would could bring more people together and help people from becoming isolated
oh and the title's from the beatles song
which illustrates the situation (Eleanor Rigby)

Clip Source: www.channel4.com

Every year in the UK, there are some funerals which are attended by no-one. Emily Ford hears how Lucy Cohen went searching for stories of the unmourned dead to find out how, in a world of social networking, people are still dying alone.

Lucy, 27, cuts a small, unassuming figure. She speaks slowly, dreamily, looking around at no one in particular as she peels the sticker off her beer bottle. "I was thinking about whether it would be possible to find someone that no one knows, in this world of social networking and Facebook."

She had read an article on unattended funerals and the questions played on her mind for months after. "These people - is it a choice that they make, to know no one and be cut off from the world? Or is it that once you start to slip between the cracks it's difficult to come back up again?"

idea was accepted, she thinks, because it is "not your typical TV documentary

I like exploring the minutiae of things, things that aren't necessarily newsworthy," she says.

invisible

Sailing to Byzantium

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 08:34:36 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: fds.oup.com

Clip Source: bp3.blogger.com

Clip Source: myweb.dal.ca

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

Clip Source: www.yeatsvision.com

Clip Source: anodyne.wordpress.com

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

Clip Source: spiral.gallery.sytes.org

Clip Source: poemsandprose.blog.co.uk

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Clip Source: byzantiumshores.blogspot.com

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Clip Source: www.magnetism.com

Clip Source: www.sciencemuseum.org.uk

Clip Source: myufo.com

Clip Source: www.spermdonorforum.com

Clip Source: www.crystalinks.com

Clip Source: www.answers.com

Clip Source: www.lifehack.org

Tags: w.b.yeats

7 unconventional and creative ways to recycle

Tue, 06 May 2008 20:04:50 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth

Clip Source: www.environmentalgraffiti.com

here are seven ways to make recycling a visible impact

7. The Walking Bike

This invention from Max Knight is a creative way to use old shoes.

Of course, you have to be willing to give up your hand brakes, but it’s a small price to pay to ride in such amazing style. The bike even has socks!

6. Pop Art Duck

5. The Washing Machine Spaceship

This alien-looking craft is, believe it or not, made entirely out of refrigerators and washing machines, dishwashers and garbage compactors.

4. A 2-liter Paradise: Build Your Own Island

looks like a fairly normal island, doesn’t it?

Why, you’d never suspect that it’s covering a floating heap of trash, thousands of plastic bottles in bags, held together with a bamboo frame, the island is 66 by 54 feet and can support a two-story house!

3. The Beer Bottle Buildings

a way to create odd works of pop art while building a brutally tough structure

2. Garbage Architecture

1. The Trashosaurus

this is a dinosaur made entirely out of garbage

weighs one ton

Tags: environment, green, design, cool

The Brilliance of Thomas Jefferson

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 05:53:25 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: He'd tear King George The Deciderer a new one, just as he did 200+ years ago.

Clip Source: quotes.liberty-tree.ca

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
We must make our election between economy and liberty
or profusion and servitude.
If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and
in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and
our amusements, for our calling and our creeds...
[we will] have no time to think,
no means of calling our miss-managers to account
but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves
to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers...
And this is the tendency of all human governments.
A departure from principle in one instance
becomes a precedent for [another ]...
till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery...
And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt.
Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."

Source:

Letter to Samuel Kercheval, Monticello, July 12, 1816

Tags: damn, straight!

Natural Fashion

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:56:17 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: The art of the people of the Omo Valley

Clip Source: www.everyoneforever.com

"This unique art (shot by Hans Silvester) of the African Surma and Mursi tribes of the Omo Valley. These nomadic people have no architecture or crafts with which to express their innate artistic sense. Instead, they use their bodies as canvases and adorning themselves with materials obtained from their surroundings such as flowers, leaves, grasses, berries and branches which seems endlessly inventive, and above all, fun"

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Clip Source: taintball.blogspot.com

Clip Source: www.lamaisonpresbastille.com

Clip Source: www.livresphotos.com

Clip Source: www.lamaisonpresbastille.com

Hans Silvester
biographie

Clip Source: www.amazon.co.uk

Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa (Hardcover)

by Hans Silvester (Author)

£12.97 & eligible for Free UK delivery on orders over £15 with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

Captured: Girl suicide bomber

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 03:50:45 GMT

clipped by: Smoke TNT

Clip Source: www.mirror.co.uk

Police in Iraq presented a video yesterday of a suspected girl suicide bomber aged just 15.

The teenager, believed to have been drugged, was caught wearing a vest packed with 31lb of explosives.

She denied she ever intended to carry out an attack. But her arrest on Sunday heightened concern about a rise in suicide bombings by Iraqi women.

The number has more than tripled from eight in 2007 to 29 this year already.

The girl, who gave her name as Rania, said she was born in 1993.

At first, she claimed she did not know the women who gave her the lethal vest. "I swear to Allah, they were strangers," she is heard saying.

Later she admitted she knew one of the women.

One police officer said her family were known as al-Qaeda supporters and her father had carried out a suicide bombing.

Us commanders believe al-Qaeda is increasingly exploiting grieving women unable to deal with the loss of family members.

Tags: islam, iraq, terrorists, terrorism, bomb, women, al qaeda, muslims

Art on Art: Brilliant Typography and Print

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:13:06 GMT

clipped by: haraya
clipper's remarks: The Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco set to print / graphics by Robert Massin.

Clip Source: www.typogabor.com

La Cantatrice Chauve d'Eugene Ionesco, mise en scène par Robert Massin

Clip Source: www.typogabor.com

©design et typo, photos peter gabor; étude académique; reproduction interdite; réservée à usage strictement pédagogique

Tags: typography, book, ionesco, massin, design, drama, theatre, literature, print, ink

This Man Has the Largest Penis in the World

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 06:29:59 GMT

clipped by: dakotayii
clipper's remarks: Wooooooooo

Clip Source: news.softpedia.com

This Man Has the Largest Penis in the World: 13.5 in (34.29 cm) Erect!

Enlarge picture

We may not be so impressive as other species with our physical abilities: powerful muscles or weaponry like fangs, claws, horns and so on. But we have evolved to excel in one issue: sex. Not regarding sexual activity - as it has been shown that the bonobo (which is also wrongly named "dwarf chimpanzee") has more sex and much varied than the human being - but penis size.

Man is the ape, the monkey and the primate with the biggest penis!

it appears to be the New Yorker Jonah Cardeli Falcon (born July 29, 1970). His willy is 9.5 in (24.13 cm) flaccid, 13.5 in (34.29 cm) erect! The average human penis is 6 in (15 cm) long...

But the huge penis is not a blessing.

He lives with his mom and his whale penis, without a girlfriend for 12 years.

"When I meet people they find it hard to look me in the eye, they just see what’s in my trousers.

Tags: news

Your Bi-Lingual Kitty

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:43:54 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks: "It’s kind of nice to think your kitty has gone to the effort to learn a second language to communicate with you. Sure, she did it mostly out of necessity, but also out of affection. She wouldn’t meow just for your attention if she didn’t enjoy a relationship with you."

Clip Source: www.petcentric.com

Your Bi-Lingual Kitty

Adult cats, living apart from humans, have very clear communication with one another. It is spoken mostly through scent, then through facial expression, complex body language, and touch.

Meowing is not part of this language. Meow-ese, it would seem, is a language developed exclusively for humans.

The only meowing in the cat world is done between mom cat and her young kittens.

So why do cats have two “languages?” Because meowing is unnecessary in a cat’s world. But in your world, your pet cat is dependent on you, and quickly learns that you are clearly not picking up the scent messages she leaves on your things, and you are not completely fluent in cat body language.

“meow” however gets you to do what she wants

cats have refined their meows specifically to manipulate people.

You may find that the meows that tug at your heartstrings the most are the ones your cat is using

Meow-ese seems to be generally understood by “cat people.”

We have to admit it works.

Tags: language, meow-ese, cats, communication

an Olympic pic

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:35:57 GMT

clipped by: syncopath

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

A volunteer takes pictures in front of a giant poster of Michael Phelps near the National Aquatics Center Olympic swimming venue ahead of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, August 3, 2008.

Life's but a walking shadow

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:21:46 GMT

clipped by: Sheroug

Clip Source: www.alionline.net

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

--William Shakespeare, Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5)

Why Bogart's Kiss Is Your Kiss, His Soda Your Soda

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:23:16 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: Mirror neurons help explain how we connect to each others' emotions.

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

Within the brains of humans, apes, and monkeys is a small set of neurons that simulate in real time the actions of others. When you see Humphrey Bogart lock lips with Ingrid Bergman, the same brain cells fire as when you kiss your honey. When you hear your coworker crack open a soda, in your brain it’s as if you’d opened the can yourself.

Since their discovery in monkeys less than two decades ago, mirror neurons have been called into service to explain just about everything that makes us human—from empathy and language to politics and pornography. Are these cells really the be-all and end-all of human nature? In one of the first books on the subject, neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni clearly explains what we do know (and how) and what we don’t know (or can’t). Want to learn what mirror neurons have to do with Super Bowl commercials, violent video games, autism, addiction, and even free will? This is your book. Watching someone else read

Clip Source: www.amazon.ca

Smell Ya Later?

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:06:08 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Knowing this makes me want to run outside, capture a butterfly, and inhale its scent. •

Clip Source: www.thesmartset.com

Who out there knows that butterflies are scented? Their aroma can be that of flowers like honeysuckle or jasmine, herbs and spices like lemon verbena or cinnamon, or confections like vanilla or chocolate, depending on the species.

Gilbert’s new book examines why the sense of smell is so underappreciated, and why it should be valued at least as much as seeing or hearing.

Darwin thought smell was important to our early ancestors, but of only minimal service to modern man. Freud believed that the smell became obsolete when humans started walking upright and no longer had their noses close to the ground. He asserted that repression of smell led to the repression of wild sexual impulses, which was a vital condition of civilization.

Scientific research has found that while humans can detect thousands upon thousands of distinct scents, our brains quickly reduce that sensitivity. “

But words cannot recapture a scent once it is gone and forgotten

Me, Myself and I

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:51:24 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The generally accepted linguistic explanation for the capital “I” is that it could not stand alone, uncapitalized, as a single letter, which allows for the possibility that early manuscripts and typography played a major role in shaping the national character of English-speaking countries.

So what effect has capitalizing “I” but not “you” — or any other pronoun — had on English speakers? It’s impossible to know, but perhaps our individualistic, workaholic society would be more rooted in community and quality and less focused on money and success if we each thought of ourselves as a small “i” with a sweet little dot. There have, of course, been plenty of rich and dominant cultures throughout history that have gotten by just fine without capitalizing the first-person pronoun or ever writing it down at all. There have also been cultures that committed atrocities even while capitalizing “you.”

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Why do we capitalize the word “I”?

There’s no grammatical reason for doing so, and oddly enough, the majuscule “I” appears only in English.

Consider other languages: some, like Hebrew, Arabic and Devanagari-Hindi, have no capitalized letters, and others, like Japanese, make it possible to drop pronouns altogether.

The supposedly snobbish French leave all personal pronouns in the unassuming lowercase, and Germans respectfully capitalize the formal form of “you” and even, occasionally, the informal form of “you,” but would never capitalize “I.”

Yet in English, the solitary “I” towers above “he,” “she,” “it” and the royal “we.” Even a gathering that includes God might not be addressed with a capitalized “you.”

The word “capitalize” comes from “capital,” meaning “head,” and is associated with importance, material wealth, assets and advantages.

We have capital cities and capital ideas.

We give capital punishment and accrue political, social and financial capital.

Tags: language, english, i