The longest smoke break of Nicholas White's life

One of the more subtle testaments to the strength the human spirit can aspire to... and the weakness it can fall prey to.

1. Read the story.
2. Watch the security camera footage.
   
3. Then tell me: what would you do?

Why do we develop diabetes?

Epigenetics - a process whereby genes express themselves differently depending on behavior and environmental factors throughout an organisms lifetime

Evolution - a process whereby genes that cause a creature to reproduce are therefore the genes inherited by that creatures offspring

Diabetes - a "disease" that, as it turns out, might exemplify both of these processes:

New Theory on the Origin of Diabetes

Why do we get sick?

As in, what's the evolutionary benefit? Check it out:

Age is just a number, and money does the math

The old, rotted myth that you've got to get a Masters, win the lottery, or even graduate high school to make a million bucks gets thrown in the garbage bin.

Before you fall for the myth, or if you have fallen for it, before you discard it, read for yourself.

Google Sky

The Universe comes one step closer into our backyard: Google Sky.

A love story in stop motion

A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

QOTD

"In the midst of winter, I finally learned in me there was an invincible summer."

- Albert Camus

The Math

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being a life absolutely without purpose and 10 being a life overflowing with purpose and fulfillment at the deepest level, where are you?

Wherever you are, I promise you: It's not the circumstances that surround you or the events of your life that give birth to the quality of your life.

It's your interpretation of the events, the significance you attach to your circumstances, these are the dual forces that engineer the emotions you come in contact with throughout the day.

Take the story of W. Mitchell, a man who lived life to the fullest - then suffered a terrible motorcycle accident that burned over 65 percent of his body. He wasn't phased. He learned to fly, and regularly flew a small passenger plane. One day, with four passengers on board, a thin sheet of ice over his wings caused a disastrous takeoff. Only three people walked away from the crash. Mitchell wasn't one of them. He was paralyzed from the waist down.

After all these awful circumstances and events, ask Mitchell where his quality of life is right now. I promise you: it's never less than a nine.

We choose the interpretation, significance, and emotions that these circumstances and events produce in our minds, and therefore we and not the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune do the math that manifests our quality of life.

Write well. Please.

Do you write only under inspiration? Do your descriptions defy the need for detail and/or brevity? Is your writing really. Seriously. Honestly. AWFUL?

Mine was. I was well on my way to becoming the inadvertent Salvador Dali of the written word. Take a look at these resources for becoming a better writer because if you do, you'll get a good read. And if you apply the knowledge within? Try not to become a better writer.

On Writing Well
by William K. Zinsser

On Writing
by Stephen King

The Elements of Style
by William Strunk, Jr.

The Power of FREE

Which gives more psychological incentive: a discount, or a FREE gift?

There are strong arguments for both sides. Discussed in terms of pure theory, you might decide neither option offers more exclusive incentive.

But that wouldn't change the results of this research.

Time Management Part 1

Time.

One of the many external resources most of us don't have enough of to accomplish our goals.

Yeah, whatever.

Time is the great equalizer among human beings. We don't have equal talent, intellect, or physical ability. We all have the same amount of time each day.

Check out Steve Pavlina's article "Do It Now" for a look at how he earned a four year degree in three semesters. Think he slept next to none, lost all his friends, and gained 50 pounds (or starved to death!)? Think again! Read the article.

A Consumer's Guide to the Apocalypse

A Consumer's Guide to the Apocalypse
by Eduardo Velasquez

Remember Santana's late nineties return to relevance? Despite decades of pop culture prowess, he had slipped subterranean in his popularity, and there he might have remained, studded in late-life obscurity, had he and Arista Records exec Clive Davis not envisioned the album that brought Santana back like a phoenix from the flame.

Supernatural featured billboard's top charting vocalists singing over Santana's signature blend of blues and Latin grooves. The album was a risky move. Just because the world was head over heels for Rob Thomas didn't mean Santana could swing with any significance. The album's monumental success took all the players by surprise.

Eduardo Velasquez's A Consumer's Guide to the Apocalypse inadvertently explores what could have gone wrong. The book is a thesis on the pervasiveness of sacred sentiments and symbolism throughout pop culture. Sinister overtones crowd the text as insinuations about our impending apocalypse show up about as often as punctuation. A wide range of references to modern mainstream art - including music and movies - pepper the pages, and while it's initially entertaining to explore how Coldplay has subsumed secular billboard charts with melancholy musings on being and nothingness, or how Dave Matthews has orchestrated acoustic anthems against God while relying on sacred language to title his albums and tune his lyrics, or how Tori Amos has derailed the authority of Christian tradition by selling a story in song that apparently predates God and the Garden of Eden - the work always feels like a calculated bid at entertainment and popular appeal. It worked wonders for Santana. For Velasquez - not so much.

Maybe that's because Velasquez doesn't seem to possess any real passion or enthusiasm for these popular artists. He gains the most steam while he wanders through the work of academics and underground artists entirely unrelated to his mainstream thesis - like Tom Wolfe's I am Charlotte Simmons and Michael Frayn's Copenhagen - and loses the most when he makes an obligatory stab at understanding writers like Neil Gaiman or Chuck Palahnuick. It's really a shame, because when Velasquez digs into more academic realms, his writing roars to life and lifts pieces most people are probably unfamiliar with to auspicious and intriguing heights.

Imagine if Santana had hired billboard's top guns and tried to fire off a round of those artists' pop genres. What if the Rob Thomas led single Smooth had been a Matchbox Twenty power ballad or the beat-driven love croon Maria, Maria had been an urbanized R&B knockoff? Instead, Santana invited pop's powerhouses to participate in his own blend of blues based guitar lines and percussive Latin grooves, and when the smoke cleared, the result was star-studded integrity.

Likewise, if Velasquez had stuck to his academic guns, embraced the perpetual pretense of an industry that survives by breeding illusion and ambiguity (not pop - education), stayed away from artists, albums, and books he can't demonstrate delight in, and instead, surrounded what are often quite profound propositions with equally enlightened enthusiasm, his less than two hundred page book might read less like paint drying and more, far more, like a pop song.

The Nines

John August, writer of such savoir fair as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Big Fish, and Go, makes his directorial debut with The Nines, a film made up of three short stories threaded through the same narrative loop. Watching the same actors inhabit vastly different roles (and vastly different hair colors), the connections become more intimately tied, until the three stories become the same story in a way I'll leave for you to figure out.

The camerawork is savvy and sly, the performances have all the harrowing subtlety of a haiku, the dialogue is crisp and convincing (even when the interactions make hairpin turns from serious to silly to fiercely philosophical), and the science behind the stuff gets quietly explained in the opening moments as a green string gets split into individual threads, then twined together, then tied around a wrist.

Don't think string theory can tug at your heart strings? Then don't miss the Nines.

The Fountain

Second cousin to the heart string theory that is the Nines, the Fountain is Darren Aronofsky's implosively artistic romp through the realms of reincarnation and parallel lives. The film, like the Nines, is made up of three intimately tied tales about a man searching for a way to save the woman he loves.

Much has been booed and ballyhooed about the movie. The density of the themes, combined with a commitment to never come out and clearly explain what the hell is going on, have caused many a critic to call the film ridiculously pretentious, and I'll tell you what - it's hard to argue. Where most films assume too little of the audience, this film might assume too much. That fact invites intellectuals to take in multiple viewings, but the average audience member is going to scratch a hole in their head.

The point is - this movie requires some serious work from the audience. For some, that's going to taint their entertainment. For others, that's going to be the unadulterated appeal.

Let's get to the implicit praise.

The soundtrack, an enthralling collaboration between Clint Mansell and Kronos Quartet, is one of the more singularly moving fusions of electronic loops, "found sound", and orchestration. This is the soundscape of the mind, where glass shatters and oboes bellow beneath the thrill of experience.

The performances are uncomfortably moving. Ellen Burstyn is Oscar worthy as always. Rachel Weisz captivates as a terminally ill woman slowly losing her sense of touch (watch for when her husband realizes she can't feel how hot the bath water is - she'll break your heart). Hugh Jackman makes you believe love could take him across time and space (and depending on how you interpret the movie, maybe it does).

The special effects are worth the ticket price alone. Aronofsky decided to forego as much CGI as possible. Considering a third of the film takes place in outer space, he was asking the SFX department to fly without wings. Enter Peter Parks, who utilized macrophotographic techniques to capture images of deep-sea microorganisms and create what he calls the feeling of "looking at infinity." A mountain of a claim? And a mountain of an accomplishment. Parks' visual panorama depicts the ecstasy of outer space through gravitational effects, settlement, refractive indices, and all for under $140,000.

Less mainstream than the Nines, the Fountain is an ambitious, rewarding work, and perhaps too far ahead of its time. But then, this is the one movie (and when you watch it, you'll know what I mean) where that may well be it's most profound triumph.

Anthony Robbins - TED Talk

Check out Tony rocking the crowd and TOTALLY in state.

This is seriously the most motivating, life changing twenty minute presentation I've ever seen. It's the Tony Robbins snackpack.

Synesthesia and the Structure of Beliefs

Check out this article by NLP expert Robert Dilts because it gives some great insights into the process of mastery.

I love this passage:

Depending upon the nature of a particular outcome, it may take more or less effort to accomplish a particular goal. In many instances, our ultimate success is not a function of immediate results; it is a function of an ongoing feedback loop. Sometimes you even need to do something that you know probably won't work in order to get the feedback necessary to progress.

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