See the full guide Preparing Young Children for School Practice Guide › Recent research has identified practices that have the potential to prepare young children to benefit from the learning opportunities they will encounter in school.

Informational text — resources whose purpose is to inform — is essential to daily life and fundamental to literacy. Unfortunately, young children typically have limited exposure to informational text. Two 9-week randomized controlled trials with 263 first-grade children from low-income communities examined whether free educational videos and digital games from the PBS KIDS show “Molly of Denali” supported children’s ability to use informational text to answer real-world questions. Study 1 found significant positive intervention impacts on child outcomes; Study 2 replicated these findings.

I’m writing this blog because of the disarray I see over the topic of context instruction and the poor instructional practice that it seems to manifest. One confusion is already well recognized, but merits some mention here. The other befuddlement usually goes without remark, and yet it, too, has unfortunate consequences for young readers.

Teacher question: One of my colleagues told us that we should not be teaching guided reading lessons or comprehension skills or strategies. We’re using a core reading program that includes those kinds of things. He says that the science of reading proves that we would get higher reading achievement by teaching more social studies and science (he’s our science teacher) and dropping the comprehension instruction that we are providing. He’s really vocal about this. Can you help us shut him up? Shanahan’s response

As discussion of Emily Hanford’s new podcast builds, teachers are questioning stories we were sold by people we trusted. For some teachers, this is the first time they’ve doubted instructional materials that are ubiquitous in elementary and reading intervention classrooms. When we question the tenets of Balanced Literacy, teachers can unearth a trove of information. But how to make sense of it all?

30% of Americans have passports. But where do those Americans live? New Jersey takes the prize for the highest percentage of passports issued: 68.36%. At the low end: Mississippi, with just 19.86%. Via C.G.P. Grey, see the graphic below: For the “yes, but…” file: This dataset actually reflects addresses for issuance, not ownership of US […]

The post Which Americans have passports, and which Americans don’t? first appeared on UPGRADE: TRAVEL BETTER.

Family friends recently returned from a trip to the Wynn Las Vegas, but the first story they had to tell wasn’t about luxurious accommodations, gambling, restaurants, or shows. It was about the snacks on top of their minibar. The motion-detector minibar wasn’t new to me. Those are bad enough: You move any item in the […]

The post Be careful not to touch anything at the Wynn Las Vegas first appeared on UPGRADE: TRAVEL BETTER.

Are you looking for the perfect way to gamble while flying on a plane? Look no further – here are our picks for the top online casinos! Introduction Flying can be a long and exhausting process. Many travelers seek solace in online gambling, offering the convenience of playing casino games while on-the-go. Thanks to Wi-Fi […]

The post The Best Online Casinos to Gamble at While Flying By Plane first appeared on UPGRADE: TRAVEL BETTER.

If you run an eCommerce website, you may prefer to use a graphic as the call-to-action button for your subscription-style products or services. Below you can find a number of different subscription buttons suitable for use on a website’s landing page or the product page. Want some Buy Now button or Add to Cart button […]

The post Subscription Button Graphics for eCommerce Websites appeared first on Tips and Tricks HQ.

In this blog post, you can find a range of different ‘Buy Now’ buttons that can be used on a website as the ‘call-to-action’ button for a product or service you are trying to sell. There is a range of different size buttons, in a number of different colors to fit with the aesthetics of […]

The post Buy Now Button Graphics for eCommerce Websites appeared first on Tips and Tricks HQ.

  What if you could learn AI and Data Science based on knowledge you already know? You have an opportunity to accelerate your learning of AI in a unique way through this limited, early bird offer Here is a simple observation: The mathematical foundations of Data Science rest on four elements i.e. Linear Algebra, Probability [...]

Coding for #AI and #machinelearning – online course/workshop We are exploring a new way to learning how to code for AI and Machine Learning by applying ideas of  deliberate practise Starting Oct 2018 – the workshop has limited places Please contact info@futuretext.com if you want to sign up for our online workshop (300 USD)   [...]

Nvidia might have some serious competition in the AI chip space coming. Amazon is now seeking to bring its own… Continue reading Amazon readies new AI chip to compete with Nvidia

The post Amazon readies new AI chip to compete with Nvidia appeared first on ReadWrite.

Tuesday 12 November 2024 – Flockerz ($FLOCK) has reached $1.5 million in its presale, as the meme coin market sees… Continue reading Flockerz Presale Reaches $1.5M as Meme Coin Market Hits $111B

The post Flockerz Presale Reaches $1.5M as Meme Coin Market Hits $111B appeared first on ReadWrite.

Elon Musk could have a role in Donald Trump’s White House, and this could mean stricter AI standards. It’s no… Continue reading Musk and Trump’s relationship could lead to tougher AI standards

The post Musk and Trump’s relationship could lead to tougher AI standards appeared first on ReadWrite.

Many fans of Huawei on Friday were disappointed that its much-anticipated phone, Mate XT - more than twice the price of the iPhone 16 Pro Max - was not available for walk-in customers.

Nigeria began a process to sanction Starlink after the satellite-internet service owned by billionaire Elon Musk increased its prices without approval from the regulator.

The Internet Archive, an online repository of web pages, was offline Thursday after its founder confirmed a major cyberattack that exposed the data of millions of users and left the site defaced.

ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming is China's richest person, with personal wealth of $49.3 billion (R872 billion), an annual rich list showed on Tuesday, although counterparts in real estate and renewables have fared less well.

A family in Brackenfell, Cape Town, is looking for their missing teenage son, whom they last saw on Saturday morning heading to visit a friend in the area.

President Cyril Ramaphosa's lawyers say former spy boss Arthur Fraser's claims about the Phala Phala break-in are like something from a movie - but are founded on nothing more than baseless speculation.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has raised the alarm over climate change, reporting 2024 is the world's hottest year yet.

A formal disciplinary process, or lack thereof, around the suspensions of two high-ranking officials at the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has pitted Higher Education and Training Minister Nobuhle Pamela Nkabane against NSFAS administrator Freeman Nomvalo.

When Ebrahim Rasool returns to Washington in December as South Africa's ambassador, one of his primary goals is to reposition Pretoria as a "moral superpower"

The MK Party continued its campaign against accountability for corruption, with its deputy leader, John Hlophe, suggesting National Director of Public Prosecutions Shamila Batohi was "misleading the nation" about the Guptas' extradition.

Iif you're a new owner or just bought your first travel trailer, these are the must-have travel trailer accessories that may not have occurred to you.

The post Travel Trailer Accessories You Absolutely Need (Read This BEFORE Your First Trip) appeared first on Vagabondish.

Like almost any question about AI, “How does AI impact software architecture?” has two sides to it: how AI changes the practice of software architecture and how AI changes the things we architect. These questions are coupled; one can’t really be discussed without the other. But to jump to the conclusion, we can say that […]

Over the years, many of us have become accustomed to letting computers do our thinking for us. “That’s what the computer says” is a refrain in many bad customer service interactions. “That’s what the data says” is a variation—“the data” doesn’t say much if you don’t know how it was collected and how the data […]

I recently attended a weekend-long birthday getaway for an old college friend, and as soon as I arrived, he pulled out a box and said, "You have to play this game."

And he was right.

Hitster describes itself as a Music Party Board Game, and that's accurate. — Read the rest

The post Do you like party games and music history? Try HITSTER appeared first on Boing Boing.

Earlier this year on April Fools' Day, the Empire State Building announced that they would be opening at a Rainforest Café on the iconic building's 86^th floor observatory. If you got your hopes up just to find out it was all an April Fools' joke, rejoice, because now the joke is about to become reality. — Read the rest

The post Rainforest Café fans: don't miss this Empire State Building pop-up appeared first on Boing Boing.

Neuroscientists have confirmed what every stoner already knows: music sounds better when you're high on weed. In a paper titled "Exploring the interaction between cannabis, hearing, and music," researchers from Toronto Metropolitan University reported results from a study in which participants "reported significantly greater hearing sensitivity and levels of state absorption while high compared to sober." — Read the rest

The post Music really does sound better when you're high, scientists report appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: If you still don't have a mouse for your WFH setup, get this ergonomic Logitech MX mouse for $89.99 (reg. $99)!

You know what part of you body seriously takes a beating after a long day or week of work? No, it's not your neck—though you need a more supportive office chair. — Read the rest

The post Your hand is cramping up! Use this ergonomic mouse instead appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Take 75% off this podcast player and discovery app with code TAKE10 at checkout.

We're not gonna lie: This app is so good it should come with a warning label. It's got everything a podcast junkie like yourself could ever want: millions of shows, easy discovery of new episodes, offline listening…But be warned, you'll only want more once you get a taste. — Read the rest

The post This app is your podcast dealer…don't get addicted appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Get 37% off this touchscreen infotainment system with CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility. 

Elon, who?? Okay, maybe Teslas have cool infotainment systems, but you don't have to pay crazy prices for an over-hyped screen—just grab one of these CarPlay displays for your old beater. — Read the rest

The post Teslas suck! What you really need is this whizz-bang CarPlay screen appeared first on Boing Boing.

A North Texas man recently spent $4000 on a guitar he believed was signed by Taylor Swift at the Ellis County Wild Game Dinner in Waxahachie, Texas, and then immediately destroyed it with a hammer. Sounds like the guitar was an imposter. — Read the rest

The post Texas man wastes $4k smashing a Taylor Swift "themed" guitar appeared first on Boing Boing.

Ryan Lawler notes in his Contentinople blog that CBS's high definition stream of the NCAA men's basketball tournament has been a great success.

CBS Sports reported that traffic to its NCAA March Madness on Demand site on the first day of the tourney increased 56 percent year-over-year, to 2.7 million unique users yesterday from 1.75 million uniques a year ago.

If there is a conclusion to be drawn, I do not think it is that internet video can or should compete with television. In this case, I believe the draw is a combination of the fact that watching television on Thursday afternoon is not an option for people with a day job, and that there are many games going on simultaneously and CBS television does not always cut to the game that the individual user wants to see.

I think the focus should be on the success of delivering a high quality video experience to a large audience, many of whom were at work. This is just another step in the direction of enterprise video becoming an essential element of the workplace experience.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is hosting a webcast at 1 pm EDT today, Friday August 7.

Use the hashtag #HCRQ to ask a question via Twitter or email hhsstudio@hhs.gov.

The following article, Unhinged Liberal Women Cry On Social Media Over Trump’s Victory And Falsely Claim They’ve Lost All Their Rights, was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

(Natural News) Liberals have been working hard to portray Trump as a misogynist, and it worked on a lot of women – with some of them buying into the false narrative that he will work against women so wholeheartedly that they are now having very public meltdowns over his victory. Revolver put together some of the …

Continue reading Unhinged Liberal Women Cry On Social Media Over Trump’s Victory And Falsely Claim They’ve Lost All Their Rights ...

The following article, Teacher at Chino Valley School District Goes Off the Rails over a Student With a Trump Hat, was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

A “teacher” at Chino Valley School District launched into an unhinged rant after a student entered his classroom wearing a Trump hat. His name is Clyde J Colinco, who is also the girls golf course, and unfortunately, he still appears to be employed at Chino High School. “Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing. If …

Continue reading Teacher at Chino Valley School District Goes Off the Rails over a Student With a Trump Hat ...

The following article, Lunatic Democrat Murders Wife and Kids, Commits Suicide Over His Hate for Donald Trump, was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

This is how mentally deranged liberals are… a Democrat in Minnesota was so filled with rage that Donald Trump won the election last week that he murdered his own wife and kids and then committed suicide to prevent them all from having to live during the next Trump presidency. Notice how you never heard any …

Continue reading Lunatic Democrat Murders Wife and Kids, Commits Suicide Over His Hate for Donald Trump ...

The following article, INTERNal Stupidity: Pentagon Interns Post Pic of Chinese Plane on Veteran’s Day, was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

A knock-off Chinese plane similar to the US F-35 was inadvertently posted by the F-35 JPO (Joint Program Office) on Veteran’s Day. Somebody needs to help this administration figure out some basics …oh wait, a new administration is coming in January. Good. The JPO Strike Force account had no clue what they did until an …

Continue reading INTERNal Stupidity: Pentagon Interns Post Pic of Chinese Plane on Veteran’s Day ...

On May 16, 2010, at 10:02 AM, "Xx" wrote:

You mentioned you gave a talk at Rutgers about future proofing your passion. Is this available as a podcast? I'd love to listen!

This poor kid emailed me to ask a really simple question. And I went and saddled him with the world's most circuitously long-winded answer. Surprise, surprise.

---

Hey, Xx,

Thanks for the note, man. No I'm sorry its not up as audio AFAIK.

FWIW, it's a talk I'm asked to do more often lately so I wouldn't be surprised if it turns up sooner or later.

Since you were kind enough to ask, the talk—which comes out super different each time I do it— consists of a discursive mishmash of advice I wish I'd had the ears to hear in the year or five after graduating from college: primarily, that we never end up anywhere near where we'd expected, and that most of us would have been a lot happier a lot faster if we'd realized that we were often obsessing over the wrong things—starting with how much the world should care about our major. ("Liberal Arts," with a concentration in [ugh] "Cultural Studies," thanks.)

The talk started as a way to encourage students to learn enough about what they care about that any temporary derails and side roads wouldn't scare their horses too badly. But, today, I see it as something a lot bigger that's demonstrably useful to anyone who hopes to survive, evolve, and thrive in this insane world.

A handful of bits I'm (obviously) still synthesizing into something notionally cohesive:

---

My Kingdom for Some Context!

For myself, I wish I'd known the value of developing early expertise in interesting new skills around emerging technologies (rather than just iteratively pseudo-honing the 202-level skills I thought I "understood"). Alongside that, I wish I'd learned to embrace the non-douchier aspects of building awesome human relationships (as against "networking" in the service of landing some straight job that, as with most hungry young people, locked me into a carpeted prison of monkey work at the worst time possible).

Also how I wish I'd paid more attention to events, contexts, relationships, and change that were happening outside my immediate world —rather than becoming, say, the undisputed master of fretting about status, salary, and whether I was "a success" who had "arrived".

Hint: I was not a "success," and I had not, by any stretch, "arrived."

To my mind, "success" in the real world is much more the equivalent of achieving a new personal best; it's not about whether you won the "Springtime in Springfield SunnyD®/Q105™ 5k FunRun for Entitilitus," and got a little ribbon with a gold crest on it.

Truly, pretty much anyone who feels they've "arrived" anyplace is about to learn a) how much more they could be doing outside the narrowness of an often superficial ambition and b) the surprising number of things they had to give away through the opportunity costs and trade-offs that lead up to every theoretical milestone. It's a real goddamned thistle, and it's more than a little depressing.

---

Do You Still Really Want to be a Fireman?

[N.B.: I really hope you're taking bathroom breaks here, Xx]

Related, I think this is about how being an adult is not only unbelievably complicated in ways that you can't begin to imagine—that it's frequently defined by impossible decisions and non-stop layers of "hypocrisy"—but that there's an invisible but entirely real risk to doggedly chasing the theoretically laudable notion of "following your dream." Especially if it's a dream you first had while sleeping on Star Wars sheets in a racecar bed.

Not because it's a bad idea to want things or to have ambitions. Quite the opposite. More because, for a lot of us, the "dreams" of youth turn out to be half-finished blueprints for wax wings. And not particularly flattering ones at that.

By starting adult life with an autistically explicit "goal" that's never been tested against any kind of real-world experience or reality-in-context, we can paradoxically miss a thousand more useful, lucrative, or organic opportunities that just…what?…pop up. Often these are one-time chances to do amazing and even unique things—opportunities that many of us continue to reject out of hand because it's "not what we do."

It took me a full decade to learn to embrace the unfamiliar gifts that kismet loves to deliver on our busiest and most stressful days, and which gifts might (maybe/maybe not) even end up bringing the real-life, non-racecar-bed, now me a big step closer to something that's 1000 times more interesting than a hollow, ten-year-old caricature of "what I wanna be when I grow up."

---

Finding Your "Old Butcher"

Also related, it strikes me that the indisputable wealth of information and options that are provided by the web often comes with a harrowing hidden tradeoff. While we can certainly learn a lot on our own and become (what feels like) an instant expert on any topic in an afternoon, we usually do so in the absence of a mentor and outside the context of applying expertise to solve actual problems. In my opinion, a cadet should have to survive more than a few Kobayashi Maru scenarios before he gets to declare himself, "Captain."

Call it a guru, a wizard, an old butcher, or what have you, the mad echo chamber of a young mind often benefits from the dampening influence of an experienced grownup who can help you understand things that raw data, wikipedia entries, and lists of tips and tricks can't and wont ever do.

We benefit from a hand on the back and a gentle voice, reminding us:

• "Try not to obsess over implementation until you really understand the problem," or
• "Worry more about relationships than org charts or follower counts," or
• "Don't quit looking after you've found that first data point," or—my favorite—
• "Spend less time fantasizing about 'success' and way more time making really cool mistakes."

Conversely, though, I think this means that everything we think we know, as well as all the fancy advice that gets thrown around—absolutely including the material you're reading now—is the product of what one person knows and what another person has the ears to hear. For us. For now. For who really knows what. But it is a transaction that takes place in a very specific time and within the bounds of a set of "known" "facts." So, fair warning, doing your own due diligence never hurts.

---

What's Almost Not Impossible?

[N.B.: I swear to God this ends at some point, Xx]

One big pattern for "future-proofing" your passion? Keep your eyes open and your heart even "opener." And, be more than simply tolerant of the notion of change—sure, take it as read that nothing is ever fixed in place for more than a little while.

But, to the extent that your sanity can bear it, always keep an eye on the corners, the edges, and especially learn to watch for those infinitesimally tiny figures starting to shuffle around near the horizon. Because a lot of the things that seem ridiculously small and inconsequential right now will eventually cast a shadow that people will be chasing for decades. It's just that we're never sure which tiny figure that will turn out to be.

So, yeah. It really is true that no one but you cares about your major. But, trust me: everybody is interested in the person who repeatedly notices the things that are about to stop being impossible.

Be the curious one who soaks in all that "irrelevant" stuff. And, even as you stay heads-down on the "now" projects that keep the lights on, remember that the guy who invented those lights made hundreds of "failed" lightbulbs before fundamentally upending the way we think about time, family, industry, and the role of technology in how we live and work. But, yes, first he "failed" a lot a lot at something which more than a few of his contemporaries thought was pointless in the first place.

Ask: What's out there right now that's about to stop being impossible? Where will it happen first? Who will (most loudly and erroneously) declare it's total bullshit? Who will mostly get it right—but possibly too early? Who will figure out what it means to our grandkids? Who will figure out how to put it in everyone's front pocket for a quarter?

Y'know who? I'll tell you who: practically anybody BUT that guy in the racecar bed who wants to talk about his major.

---

Important: Merlin's Advice is Only Future-Proof to 10 Meters

A few years back, most watch manufacturers decided to come clean and stop categorically declaring that their timepieces were "waterproof." Instead, today, the more credible vendors admit their product is merely "water-resistant"—and, even then, they'll only guarantee the underwater functionality at so many meters, and for so long, and under thus and such conditions.

Truthfully, the same applies here. Nothing can actually "future-proof" anything. Anyone who claims to know the future is either a madman, a charlatan, or, often as not, both.

Thing is, regardless of the passions (or goals or values or priorities or whatever) that we hope to protect or defend, we'd all do well to remember that it is still ultimately OUR passion that's at stake.

That means we're the only one responsible for seeing that its functional components survive and adapt in a world in which each one of us has just north of zero control.

If we embrace the fact that no one can or should ever care about the health of our passions as much as we do, the practical decisions that help ensure Our Good Thing stays alive can become as "simple" as a handful of proven patterns—work hard, stay awake, fail well, hang with smart people, shed bullshit, say "maybe," focus on action, and always always commit yourself to a bracing daily mixture of all the courage, honesty, and information you need to do something awesome—discover whatever it'll take to keep your nose on the side of the ocean where the fresh air lives. This is huge.

Anything else? Yeah. Drink lots of water, play with your kid every chance you get, and quit Facebook today. No, really, do it.

Thanks again for the note, Xx, and sorry for the novella. I'll ping you if the audio ever turns up. Til then, forget your major, and break a leg!

yr internet pal,
/m

It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

—Albert Einstein, “On the Method of Theoretical Physics” (1934)

Context: Last week, I pinched off one of my typically woolly emails in response to an acquaintance whom I admire. He’s a swell guy who makes things I love, and he'd written, in part, to express concern that my recent Swift impersonation had been directed explicitly at something he'd made. Which, of course, it hadn’t—but which, as I'll try to discuss here, strikes me as irrelevant.

To paraphrase Bogie, I played it for him, so now I suppose I might as well play it for you.

(n.b.: Excerpted, redacted, munged, and heavily expanded from my original email)

There are at least a couple things that mean a lot to me that I'm still just not very good at.

• Make nuanced points in whatever way they need to be made; even if that ends up seeming “un-nuanced”
• Never explain yourself.

I want to break both these self-imposed rules privately with you here. [Editor’s Note: Um.] Because, I hope to nuance the shit out of some fairly un-nuanced points. And, to do that, I'll also (reluctantly) need to explain myself. But, here goes.

First [regarding my goofing on “distraction-free writing environments”] I think there are some GIANT distinctions at play here that a lot of folks may not find nearly as obvious as I do:

1. Tool Mastery vs. Productivity Pr0n – Finding and learning the right tools for your work vs solely dicking around with the options for those tools is just so important, but also so different. And, admittedly, it’s almost impossible to contrast those differences in terms of hard & fast rules that could be true for all people in all situations. But, that doesn’t make the difference any less qualitatively special or real.
   
   Similarly…

2. Self-Help Vs. “Self”–“Help” – Solving the problem that caused the problem that caused the problem that caused the symptom we eventually noticed. Huge. Arguably, peerless.

   • Viz.: How many of us ignore the actual cause of our problem in favor of just reading dozens of blog posts about how to “turbocharge” its most superficial symptoms? Sick.

3. Focus & Play – Yes, focusing on important work is, as Ford used to say, Job 1. But, that focus benefits when we maintain the durable and unapologetic sense of play that affords true creativity and fosters an emergence of context and connection that’s usually killed by stress. BUT.

   • Again, what conceivable “rule” could ever serve to immutably declare that “THIS goofing-off is critical for hippocampal plasticity” vs. “THAT goofing-off is just dumb, distracting bullshit?”

   • Impossible. Because drawing those kinds of distinctions is one of our most important day-to-day responsibilities. Decisions are hard, and there’s no app or alarm gadget that can change that.

     • Although, they certainly can help mask the depth of the underlying problem that made them seem so—what’s the parlance?—“indispensable”.
     • Think: Elmo Band-Aids for that unsightly pancreatic tumor.

4. Reducing Distraction through Care (Rather than braces, armatures, and puppet strings). Removing interruptions and external distractions that harm your work or life? Great. Counting on your distraction-removal tool to supplement your non-existent motivation to do work that will never get done anyway? Pathetic.

   • Frankly, this is a big reason I'm so galled when anyone touts their tool/product/service as being the poor, misunderstood artist’s new miracle medicine—rather than just admitting they've made a slightly different spoon.
   • Because, let’s be honest: although most of us have plenty of perfectly serviceable spoons, everybody knows collecting cutlery is way more fun than using it to swallow yucky medicine.

5. Using a System Vs. Becoming a System. Having a system or process for getting work done vs. making the iteration of that system or process a replacement for the work. This is just…wow…big.
   
   But, maybe most importantly to me…

6. Embracing the Impossibles. Getting past these or any other intellectual koans by simply accepting life’s innumerable and unresolvable paradoxes, hypocrisies, and impossibilities as God-given gifts of creative constraint. Rather than, say, a mimeographed page of long division problems that must be solved for a whole number, n.

   • I just can’t ever get away from this one. For me, it’s what everything inevitably comes back to.
   • The very definition of our jobs is to solve the right problem at the right level for the right reason—based on a combination of the best info we have for now and a clear-eyed dedication to never pushing an unnecessary rock up an avoidable hill.

   • YET, we keep force-feeding the monster that tells us to fiddle and fart and blame the Big Cruel World whenever we face work that might threaten our fragile personal mythology.

     • “Sigh. I wish I could finally start writing My Novel….Ooooooh, if only I had a slightly nicer pen…and Zeus loved me more….”

All that stuff? That there’s a complex set of ideas to talk about for many complex reasons—not least of which being how many people either despise or (try to) deny the unavoidable impact of ol' number six.

But, here’s the thing: as much as saying so pisses anybody off, I think the topics we're NOT talking about whenever we disappear into Talmudic scholarship about “full-screen mode” or “minimalist desks” or whatever constitutes a “zen habit”—those shunned topics are precisely the things that I believe are most mind-blowingly critical to our real-world happiness as humans.

In fact, I believe that to such a degree that helping provide a voice for those unpopular topics that can be heard over the din is now (what passes for) my career. I really believe these deeper ideas are worth socializing on any number of levels and in many media. Even when it’s inconvenient and slightly disrespectful of someone’s business model.

So, that’s what I try to do. I talk about these things. Seldom by careful design. Often poorly. But, always because they each mean an awful lot to me.

[…]

But, no matter how I end up saying whatever the hell I say, I believe in saying it not simply to be liked or followed or revered as a “nice guy” who pushes out shit-tons of whatever to “help people.”

Because, believe me, friend, a great many of those apparently “nice guys” swarming around the web “helping people” these days are ass-fucking their audience for nickels and calling it a complimentary colonoscopy. And, while I absolutely think that in itself is empirically wrong, I also think it’s just as important to say that it’s wrong. Sometimes, True Things need to be said.

Which in this instance amounts to saying, a) selling people a prettier way to kinda almost but not really write is not, in the canonical sense, “nice”—but, far worse, b) leaving your starry-eyed customers with the nauseatingly misguided impression that their “distraction” originates from anyplace but their own busted-ass brain is really not “helping.” Not on any level. It is, literally, harmful.

“Helping” a junkie become more efficient at keeping his syringe loaded is hardly “nice.”

It’s the opposite of nice. And, it’s the opposite of helpful. These are my True Things.

And, to me, saying your True Things also means not watering down the message you care about in order to render it incapable of even conceivably hurting someone’s feelings—or of even conceivably losing you even one teeny-tiny slice of that precious “market share.”

Well, that’s the price, and I'm fine paying it—best money I've ever spent.

But, it also means trusting your audience by letting each of them decide to add water only as they choose to—by never corrupting the actual concentrate in a way that might make it less useful to the smartest or most eager 5% of people who'd like to try using it undiluted. Because, at that point, you're not only abandoning the coolest people you have the honor of serving—you risk becoming a charlatan.

And, that’s precisely what you become when you start to iteratively inbreed the kind of fucktard audience for whom daily buffets of weak swill and beige assurance are life’s most gratifying reward.

Sure. Those poor bastards may never end up using any of that watery information to do anything more ambitious than turbocharging their most regrettable symptoms. But, who’s the last person in the universe who’s going to grab them by the ears and tell them to get back to work? Exactly—that same “nice guy” whose livelihood now depends on keeping infantalized strangers addicted to his “help.”

Holy shit—no way could I ever live with that. It’s so wrong, it’s not even right. ESC, ESC, ESC!

[…]

Okay. So anyhow, there’s a really long-winded, overly generous, and extremely pompous way of trying to say I don’t know how to do what I do except how I do it. But, I do genuinely feel awful when innocent people feel they have been publicly humiliated or berated simply because I'm some dick who hates people.

Which has to be my favorite irony of all.

When I was a kid, I thought my Mom was “mean” not to let me play in traffic on busy Galbraith Road. Today, I'm not simply grateful that she had the strength and resolve to be so “mean”—I actually can’t imagine how sad it would be to not have people in your life who care enough about your long-term welfare to tell you to stop fucking around in traffic. To where you eventually might start even seeking 12x-daily safety hacks from some of the very same drivers whose recklessness may eventually kill you. Wow.

[…]

Admitting when life is complicated or things aren’t shiny and happy all the time strikes me as a wonderfully sane and adult way to conduct one’s life. That there are so many folks offended by even the existence of this anarchic idea is not a problem I can solve.

No more than I can wish useless email away or pray hard enough that it never rains on anyone’s leaky roof. All out of scope.

And, then, I jizzed on at length about how much I admire the recipient’s work. Which I do.

---

Good work doesn’t need a cookie

I may admire your work, too. Especially if you care a lot about that work and don’t overly sweat peoples' opinions of it. Most definitely including my own.

For these purposes, it doesn’t really matter whether we're friends and, honestly, it doesn’t even matter whether I love, use, or agree with everything you do, say, or make in a given day.

It doesn’t matter because good work doesn’t need me to love it. Like tornadoes and cold sores, good work happens with total disregard to whether I'm “into it.”

But, conversely, let’s stipulate that the points-of-view undergirding our opinions—again, including mine—will and should survive either agreement or lack of agreement with equivalently effortless ease. Because, like really good work, a really good point-of-view doesn’t require another person’s benediction.

Guess we'll have to disagree to agree

Now, to be only vaguely clearer here, I'm not posting this circuitous ego dump in the service of altering your opinion of either me, my friend, his work, or practically anything else for that matter.

But, I would love it if we could all be more okay with the fact that real life means that we do each have a different, sometimes incongruous, and often totally incompatible point-of-view. Yes. Even you have a point-of-view that someone despises. Ready to change it now? Jesus, I sure hope not.

Then, to be only slightly more clear, I'm also not advocating for that fakey brand of web-based kum ba ya that gets trotted out alternately as “tolerance” or “inclusion” or some styrofoam miniature of “civility.”

I'm absolutely not against all of those things when authentically practiced, but I'm also really skeptical of the well-branded peacemakers who are forever appointing themselves the Internet’s “Now-Now-Let’s-All-Pretend-We're-Just-Saying-the-Same-Useless-Thing-Here” den mothers.

Because we're not all saying the same things. Not at all.

And, it infantalizes some important conversations when we tacitly demand that any instance of honest disagreement be immediately horseshat into a photo opp where some thought leader gets to hoist everyone’s hands in the air like he’s fucking Jimmy Carter.

Nope. Not saying that.

Who will you really rely on?

What I AM saying is that alllllll this seemingly unrelated stuff is absolutely related—that the pattern of not relying on other people for anything you really care about is arguably the great-grandaddy of every useful productivity, creativity, or self-help pattern.

Where’s this matter? Pretty much everywhere you have any sort of stake:

• Don’t rely on other people to remove your totally fake “distractions.”
• Don’t rely on other people to pat your beret, re-tie your cravat, and make you a nice cocoa whenever that mean man on the internet points out that your “distractions” are totally fake. (Which they are)
• Don’t rely on other people to tell you when or whether you have enough information.
• Don’t rely on other people to define your job.
• Don’t rely on other people to “design your lifestyle.”
• Don’t rely on other people to decide when your opinions are acceptable.
• Don’t rely on other people to tell you when you're allowed to be awesome.
• Don’t rely on other people to make you care.
• Don’t even rely on other people to tell you what you should or shouldn’t rely on.

Yes. I went there.

Because that’s the point. These hypocrisies, paradoxes, and ambiguities that people get so wound up about—that many of us are constantly (impotently) trying to resolve—cannot be resolved.

Because, yeah: all of these harrowingly unsolvable problems are immune to new notebooks and less-distracting applications and shinier systems and “nicer” self-“help” and pretty much anything else that is not, specifically, you walking straight into the angriest and least convenient shitstorm you can find and getting your ass kicked until the storm gets bored with kicking it.

Then, you find an even angrier storm. Then, another. And, so on.

“Get the fuck off of my obstacle, Private Pyle!”

Doing that annoying hard stuff is how you grow, get better, and learn what real help looks like. Even if that’s not the answer you wanted to hear. You get better by getting your ass out of your RSS reader and fucking making things until they suck less. Not by buying apps.

You don’t whine about distractions, or derail yourself over needing a nicer pencil sharpener, or aggravate your chronic creative diabetes by starting another desperate waddle to the self-help buffet. No. You work.

And, for what it’s worth, just like you can’t get to the moon by eating cheese, you'll also never leave boot camp with your original scrote intact by telling your drill sergeant to try using more honey than vinegar.

No. That sergeant’s job is to make you miserable. It’s his job to break down your callow conceits about what’s supposed to be easy and fair. It’s his job to emotionally pummel you into giving up and becoming a Marine.

You? You're not there to give the sergeant notes; you're there to sleep two hours a night, then not mind getting beaten for 20 hours until a decent Marine starts to fall out.

Who knows? He may even surprise you by introducing a surprisingly effective “distraction-free learning environment.”

“Tee ell dee ahr, Professor Brainiac.”

Like most humans, I like things I can understand. Like most readers, I love specificity. Like most thinkers, I love clarity. Like most students, I love relevance and practicality. And, like most busy people, believe it or not, I actually do really like it when someone gets straight to the point.

But, here’s the problem. If my 2-year-old daughter asks me about time travel, and I blithely announce, “E=mc²”, I will have said something that is entirely specific, clear, relevant, practical, and/or straight-to-the-point. For somebody.

But, not so much for my daughter. And, to be honest, not even to any useful degree for me.

She'd probably either laugh derisively at me (which she’s great at), or she'd pause and ask, “Whuh dat?” (which she’s even better at).

Thing is, her understanding that jumble of characters less than me—and my understanding it WAY less than Professor Al—has zero impact on the profundity, truth, beauty, or impact of the man’s theory.

Sure. You could quite accurately fault me for being a smartass and a poseur, and you could even berate my toddler for her unaccountably shallow understanding of Modern Physics. But, in any case, you can’t really blame either Albert or his theory.

You're turbocharging nothing

Specifically, Albert can’t begin to tell us what he really knows if we don’t understand math.

So, let’s say this theory you've been hearing about really interests you. And, let’s also pretend, just for the sake of the analogy, that you haven’t completed Calculus III (212) or Quantum Mechanics (403) or even something as elementary as, say, Advanced Astrophysics II (537). I know you have. Obviously. But, let’s pretend. Where do you start?

Well, you could read some tips about learning math. You could find a list of 500 indispensable resources for indispensable math resources. You could buy a new “distraction-free math environment.” Heck, there’s actually nothing to stop you from just declaring yourself a “math expert.” Congratulations, Professor.

Thing is: you still don’t know math.

Which means you still can’t really understand the theory—no more than a pathetic Liberal Arts refugee like me or a dullard Physics ignoramus like my kid can really grok relativity.

Difference is, you will have blown a lot of time hoping that actual expertise follows non-existent effort—while my daughter and I get to remain total novices without charge. Only, we don’t get all mad at the theory as a result; a staggering number of fake math experts do.

I mean, be honest—after all that recreational non-work and make-believe dedication almost trying to kinda learn math sorta—you might actually get frustrated at how brazenly Al defies your fondness for shortcuts by continuing to rely on so many terms and proofs and blah-blah-blah that you still just don’t understand. So annoying.

You may simply decide that Albert Einstein’s a huge dick for never saying things that can be completely understood solely by scanning a headline.

EPIC EINSTEIN FAIL, amirite?

You never really know what you didn’t know until you know it

But, Al just told the truth.

Problem is, Al’s truth not only requires fancy things in order to be truly understood—the more of those fancy things you take away from his truth, the less true it gets. And, by the time it’s been diluted to the point where you're comfortable that you understand it? You'd be understanding the wrong thing. Even I can understand that.

But, not one bit of any of this is Al’s fault. Al doesn’t get to control who uses, abuses, gets, or doesn’t get what he said or why it matters. Especially since he’s been dead for over fifty years.

All I know is, regardless of who has ears to hear it on a given day, it would be to Al’s credit never to mangle something important in order to get it into terms everybody’s ready to handle without actually trying.

And God bless him for never agreeing that your “distractions” to learning math are his problem.

So, yeah, if you only need to hand in a crappy 5-page paper, you could certainly Cliff’s Notes your way through Borges, Eliot, or Joyce in an afternoon, and feel like you haven’t missed a thing. Trouble is, if you did care even a little, it’s impossible to even say how much you're missing since you can’t be bothered to soldier through the source text. The text itself is the entire point.

Even the wonderfully cogent and readable layman’s explanations Einstein himself provided don’t really get to the nut, the application, and the implications of his real theory.

That all takes real math.

That “single datum of experience” matters

Sometimes, complex or difficult things stop being true when you try to make them too simple. Sometimes, you have to actually get laid to understand why people think sex is such a thing. Sometimes, you need to learn some Greek if you really want to understand The Gospel of John. And, yeah, sometimes, you're going to have to just work unbelievably hard at whatever you claim to care about before anyone can begin to help you get any better—or less “distracted”—at it.

The part I really know is what doesn’t work. Reading Penthouse Forum won’t help you CLEP out of Vaginal Intercourse 101. Watching a Rankin-Bass cartoon about the Easter Bunny will teach you very little about the intricacies of transubstantiation. And, if you can’t be troubled to care so much about your work that you reflexively force distractions away, dicking around with yet another writing application will merely aggravate the problem. Ironic, huh?

These quantum mechanics of personal productivity are rife with such frustrating “paradoxes.”

These are True Things.

Achieving expertise and doing creative work is all horribly complicated and difficult and paradoxical and frustrating and recursive and James Joyce-y—and any guide, blog, binary, guru, or “nice guy” that tries to suggest otherwise is probably giving you a complimentary colonoscopy. Do the math.

Want a new syllabus? Sure:

Run straight into your shitstorm, my friends. Reject the impulse to think about work, rather than finishing it. And, open your heart to the remote possibility that any mythology of personal failure that involves messiahs periodically arriving to make everything “easy” for you might not really be helping your work or your mental health or your long-standing addiction to using tools solely to ship new excuses.

Learn your real math, and any slide rule will suffice. Try, make, and do until you quit noticing the tools, and if you still think you need new tools, go try, make, and do more.

If you can pull off this deceptively simple and millennia-old pattern, you'll eventually find that—god by dying god—any partial truth that’s supported your treasured excuses for not working will be replaced by a no-faith-required knowledge that you're really, actually, finally getting better at something you care about.

Which is just sublimely un-distracting.

---

Dedication

This article is dedicated to my friend, Greg Knauss. No, he’s not the app guy–he’s just a good man who does good work, who accidentally/unintentionally helped me write this rant. He also happens to be a fella who could teach anyone a thing or two about writing with distractions. Thanks, Greg.

[update 2011-01-18 @ 16:07:40: We're up!]

5by5 Live

Before Christ was a corporal, Dan Benjamin was already a bit of a hero to me.

Since the early aughts–long before his insanely great 5by5.tv podcast network–Dan’s Hivelogic Enkoder was saving us millions of spam messages. His thoughtful tutorials on OS X (including unmissable advice on doing sane installs of MySQL and Rails, among others) are among the best on the web. His CSS has been widely stolen and reused without acknowledgment by thieves as diverse as other people and me. And his polymath posts on everything from Buddhism to The Paleo Diet to how to record a “Double-ender” have shown a charming combination of curiosity and empathy that, amongst numerous other reasons, clearly makes Dan a better human than me.

A propos of nothing, Dan’s also the guy who conducted one of (mp3) the three best interviews with me in which it’s been my good fortune to participate.1

Today, I’m honored to say that Dan and I are starting a thing together.

If it suits you, drop by 5by5.tv/live in about 35 minutes–at Noon Eastern/9am Pacific–to find out what we’re up to. I think it might be good. I’ll just say I’m as excited about this as I’ve been about any new project I’ve started in the past year or so.

Anyway. You can judge for yourself. Whether you can tolerate me or otherwise, definitely do not miss the work Dan’s doing at 5by5. Because it really is outstanding and very polished stuff.

As for our thing? My own goal, to paraphrase a bit from that interview with Dan, is to help you get excited, get better–and then?–Back to Work.

More soon. Thanks.

---

And...we're up

Back to Work | Ep.#1: Alligator in the Bathroom

Download MP3 of "'Back to Work,' Ep. 1"

In the inaugural episode of Back to Work, Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin discuss why they’re doing this show, getting back to work instead of buying berets, the lizard brain, and compare the Shadow of the Mouse to San Francisco, and eventually get to some practical tips for removing friction.

It's a start.

Sexy Audio RSS Feed
Sexy Subscription via iTunes

Episode Links

• Welcome to BrettTerpstra.com, home of Brett Terpstra and his nerdery
• carlhuda/janus – GitHub
• practically efficient — technology, workflows, life
• MacSparky – Blog
• The Brooks Review
• And now it’s all this
• Dan Rodney’s List of Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts & Keystrokes
• 43f Podcast: John Gruber & Merlin Mann’s Blogging Panel at SxSW | 43 Folders
• waffle software · ThisService
• One Thing Well
• html2text: THE ASCIINATOR (aka html2txt)
• The Conversation #27: Missionless Statements – 5by5

Merlin Mann - "Scared Shitless: How I (Mostly) Learned to Love Being Afraid of Pretty Much Everything"

Download MP4 Video of "Scared Shitless"

This is the video of a talk I did last month at Webstock in Wellington, New Zealand.

It's pretty different from a lot of stuff I've done. It's about being scared.

---

As I mentioned on Back to Work, Webstock is—what? Well. Webstock is unique. Truly. If you get the chance, you should go. Really.

I could not and would not have done this talk in this way had I had not been so inspired (and, frankly, so terrified) by the awesomeness of the other speakers, by the quality of their talks, and by the astounding graciousness and empathy of the audience that this particular event attracts.

Tash and Mike and their crackerjack team have made something really special here. I'm honored that they even invited me, and I'm insanely grateful for the care and hospitality that they showed to the speakers and to the attendees at every step of the way.

Seriously. Thank you.

---

So, yeah. I did something really weird at Webstock. Weird for me and, honestly, just plain weird for "a talk."

I'm not sure if it succeeded. But, I did the best I could to make myself (along with some really heroic friends and fellow speakers) into a legitimate guinea pig for a concept that means the world to me:

You can be scared and still do it anyway. Regardless of whatever it is.

And, you can. No. Really. You. You can do this.

You can run toward the shitstorm, let it cover you with shit, but, still never let it stop you from running.

Because, like Crazy Bob says:

"They can't eat you."

And, they can't. And, they won't. Okay?

Well, okay, then.

Rome is magnificent in every way possible, from the millennia of history made here to the deliciousness of a perfect cacio e pepe pasta. There are so many things to do in Rome, from the Colosseum to the Vatican Museums to the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. Rome is so overwhelming, in a good […]

The post 30+ Epic Things to Do in Rome, Italy appeared first on Adventurous Kate.

There are so many fantastic things to do in Siena, Italy. This small city in Tuscany is an excellent day trip from Florence, showcasing the beauty of urban Italy, with far fewer tourists than in Florence. Many tourists visit Siena on a day trip from nearby Florence — and it’s even better when paired with […]

The post 16 Cool Things to Do in Siena, Italy appeared first on Adventurous Kate.

There’s so much more to Pisa than the Leaning Tower. There are so many cool things to do in Pisa — this is a big, bustling city with a mind and attitude of its own! So many travelers swoop in on a day trip from Florence to take photos with the Leaning Tower of Pisa. And […]

The post 16 Fun Things to Do in Pisa, Italy appeared first on Adventurous Kate.

Websites are Blocking the Wrong AI Scrapers (Because AI Companies Keep Making New Ones) – 404 Media *** I had a call the other day with the Dean of a top-five school of public health, and in between furiously scribbling notes (yes, I still take notes), it struck me that here in the United States … Continue reading "Consume First, Deal with the Shit Later"

Five years ago I was posting a lot to a publication called NewCo Shift, which is now offline. I got ahold of the archives, and found this review, which hasn’t lost any of its relevance – in fact, it kind of reads like it was written last week.  Everyone in tech loves Yuval Noah Harari. … Continue reading "From the Archive: Tech Must Get Over Its Superman Complex, Or We’re All Screwed"