Ben Shoemate's Notebook

Andrew Sullivan via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan shared by 5 people

Readers know my personal disdain for Bill Clinton. But longtime readers will also know I have always defended his solid centrist, smart record in office and defended him against his most over-reaching enemies. Tonight, I think, was one of the best speeches he has ever given. It was a direct, personal and powerful endorsement of Obama. But much, much more than that: it was a statesman-like assessment of where this country is and how desperately it needs a real change toward reform and retrenchment at home and restoration of diplomacy, wisdom and prudence abroad. Yes, he nailed it with this line:

"People around the world have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."

I don't buy his evisceration of everything the Republican party has done in the last quarter century. I think the GOP did a great deal to rescue this country in the 1980s and early 1990s.

In fact, I think Clinton would have failed as a president without the foil of the Gingrich GOP. But since 2000, the worst aspects of Republicanism have crowded out its once necessary virtues. The reflexive impulse to use force over diplomacy, to use aggression over persuasion, to spend and borrow with no concern for the future, and to violate sacred principles such as the eschewal of torture with no respect for the past: these must not just be left behind. They have to be repudiated.

The United States needs this repudiation, as does the world. McCain, alas, cannot provide it. He may once have. But his party is too far gone, and his moment passed. His use of fear and deception and brattish contempt in this campaign have sealed the deal for me. But Clinton reminded all of us of what is more broadly at stake. He did it with passion and measure and eloquence. And surpassing intelligence.

We've seen the worst of Bill Clinton these past few months, Tonight, we saw the best. And it's mighty good.

(Photo: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty.)

Unobtainium is any very rare, expensive, or impossible material needed to suit a particular application.

Engineers have long (since at least the 1950s) used the term unobtainium when referring to unusual or costly materials, or when theoretically considering a material perfect for their needs in all respects save that it doesn't exist. By the 1990s, the term was widely used, including formal engineering papers. (As an example, Towards unobtainium [new composite materials for space applications], by Misra and Mohan describes how the ideal material (unobtainium) would weigh almost nothing, but be very stiff and dimensionally stable over large temperature ranges.)

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Brian Clark via RSSmeme shared by 4 people

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Who needs to learn how to read?

After all, we all learned how to read fairly early in life, usually in elementary school, right?

But do you know how to really read?

More importantly, are you really reading?

Reading can make you a better writer, as long as you’re paying attention and leaving time to actually write. But what we’re talking about here is what you say, rather than how you say it.

If you haven’t noticed, competition in the world of online content is fierce. Anyone playing to win is searching high and low for information that others don’t have, which for many means subscribing to a ridiculous number of RSS feeds.

While seeking out novel information from a wide variety of sources is admirable, it doesn’t necessarily give you an advantage. The ancient Greeks had a label for those who were widely read but not well read—they called them sophomores.

As in sophomoric… not a second-year college student (I suppose there’s not really much of a distinction).

Scanners and Pleasure Seekers

We know that people don’t read well online. They ruthlessly scan for interesting chunks of information rather than digesting the whole, and they want to be entertained in the process. This is the reality that online publishers deal with, so we disguise our nuggets of wisdom with friendly formatting and clever analogies.

But that doesn’t mean you should read that way.

If you’ve been publishing online for even a small amount of time, you’ve seen someone leave a comment that clearly demonstrates they didn’t read or understand the content. Even more painful is when someone writes a responsive post that clearly misses the entire point of the original article.

While it happens to all of us from time to time, you do not want to consistently be one of these people. Credibility is hard enough to establish without routinely demonstrating that you fail to grasp a topic that you’ve chosen to write about, whether in an article or a comment.

Plus, if you’re doing nothing but scanning hundreds of RSS feeds and reading purely to be entertained, you’re at a disadvantage. Someone in your niche or industry is likely reading books and reading deeper to become the higher authority.

Or they will after they read this article.

Information vs. Understanding

People often think of learning as an information-gathering and retention process. But being able to recall and regurgitate information is low-level learning compared with insightful understanding.

Bloggers are big on regurgitation. These cut-and-paste creatives add value to the world through a mash-up of sources, right? Maybe, but without the ability to understand and communicate what it all means for the reader, you’re simply passing on your reading obligations to others, and that’s not giving people what they look for in a publication.

On the other hand, if you understand everything you read upon a casual once over, are you truly learning anything new? The material that gives you an edge in the insight department is the stuff that’s harder to understand. In other words, the writer is your superior when it comes to that particular subject matter, and it’s your job to close the expertise gap by reading well.

You do that by moving beyond learning by instruction, and increasing your true understanding by discovery. For example, you read a challenging book full of great information, and you understand enough of it to know that you don’t understand all of it.

At that point, you can dive into the book again and read more carefully. You can go to supplemental resources. You can read other books. All that matters is you do the work rather than asking someone, and I guarantee you’re really learning in the process.

For example, next time you read a challenging blog post and you’re not clear on a point, your first inclination might be to ask a question in the comments. Instead, read the post again. If it’s still not clear, go do some research on your own to see if you can figure it out. Then when you finally do ask a question, you’re on an entirely different level of understanding and can likely engage in a meaningful dialogue with the author.

Instruction is important and beneficial. But true understanding comes from your own exploration and discovery along the path.

The Four Levels of Reading

Back in 1940, a guy named Mortimer J. Adler jolted the “widely read” into realizing they might not be well read with a book called How to Read a Book. Updated in 1973 and still going strong today, How to Read a Book identifies four levels of reading:

• Elementary
• Inspectional
• Analytical
• Syntopical

Each of these reading levels is cumulative. You can’t progress to a higher level without mastering the levels that come before.

1. Elementary Reading – Aptly named, elementary reading consists of remedial literacy, and it’s usually achieved during the elementary schooling years. Sadly, many high schools and colleges must offer remedial reading courses to ensure that elementary reading levels are maintained, but very little instruction in advanced reading is offered.

2. Inspectional Reading – Scanning and superficial reading are not evil, as long as approached as an active process that serves an appropriate purpose. Inspectional reading means giving a piece of writing a quick yet meaningful advance review in order to evaluate the merits of a deeper reading experience.

There are two types:

• Skimming: This is the equivalent of scanning a blog post to see if you want to read it carefully. You’re checking the title, the subheads, and you’re selectively dipping in and out of content to gauge interest. The same can be done with a book—go beyond the dust jacket and peruse the table of contents and each chapter, but give yourself a set amount of time to do it.
• Superficial: Superficial reading is just that… you simply read. You don’t ponder, and you don’t stop to look things up. If you don’t get something, you don’t worry about it. You’re basically priming yourself to read again at a higher level if the subject matter is worthy.

Stopping at inspectional reading is only appropriate if you find no use for the material. Unfortunately, this is all the reading some people do in preparation for their own writing.

3. Analytical Reading – At this level of reading, you’ve moved beyond superficial reading and mere information absorption. You’re now engaging your critical mind to dig down into the meaning and motivation beyond the text. To get a true understanding of a book, you would:

• Identify and classify the subject matter as a whole
• Divide it into main parts and outline those parts
• Define the problem(s) the author is trying to solve
• Understand the author’s terms and key words
• Grasp the author’s important propositions
• Know the author’s arguments
• Determine whether the author solves the intended problems
• Show where the author is uninformed, misinformed, illogical or incomplete

You’ll note that the inspectional reading you did perfectly sets the stage for an analytical reading. But so far, we’re talking about reading one book. The highest level of reading allows you to synthesize knowledge from a comparative reading of several books about the same subject.

4. Syntopical Reading – It’s been said that anyone can read five books on a topic and be an expert. That may be true, but how you read those five books will make all the difference. If you read those five books analytically, you will become an expert on what five authors have said. If you read five books syntopically, you will develop your own unique perspective and expertise in the field.

In other words, syntopical reading is not about the existing experts. It’s about you and the problems you’re trying to solve, in this case for your own readers. In this sense, the books you read are simply tools that allow you to form an understanding that’s never quite existed before. You’ve melded the information in those books with your own life experience and other knowledge to make novel connections and new insights. You, my friend, are now an expert in your own right.

Here are the five steps to syntopical reading:

• Inspection: Inspectional reading is critical to syntopical reading. You must quickly indentify which five (or 15) books you need to read from a sea of unworthy titles. Then you must also quickly identify the relevant parts and passages that satisfy your unique focus.
• Assimilation: In analytical reading, you identify the author’s chosen language by spotting the author’s terms of art and key words. This time, you assimilate the language of each author into the terms of art and key words that you choose, whether by agreeing with the language of one author or devising your own terminology.
• Questions: This time, the focus is on what questions you want answered (problems solved), as opposed to the problems each author wants to solve. This may require that you draw inferences if any particular author does not directly address one of your questions. If any one author fails to address any of your questions, you messed up at the inspection stage.
• Issues: When you ask a good question, you’ve identified an issue. When experts have differing or contradictory responses to the same question, you’re able to flesh out all sides of an issue, based on the existing literature. When you understand multiple perspectives within an individual issue, you can intelligently discuss the issue, and come to your own conclusion (which may differ from everyone else, thereby expanding the issue and hopefully adding unique value).
• Conversation: Determining the “truth” via syntopical reading is not really the point, since disagreements about truth abound with just about any topic. The value is found within the discussion among competing view points concerning the same root information, and you’re now conversant enough to hold your own in a discussion of experts. This is what the “online conversation” was supposed to look like according to early bloggers, and sometimes, it does. But mostly, the online conversation looks like the unqualified, unsubstantiated opinions of the ill-informed, and you’re not looking to be part of that scene.

Be a Demanding Reader for the Win

Reading, at its fundamental essence, is not about absorbing information. It’s about asking questions, looking for answers, understanding the various answers, and deciding for yourself. Think of reading this way, and you quickly realize how this allows you to deliver unique value to your readers as a publisher.

If you think all of this sounds like a lot of work, well… you’re right. And most people won’t do it, just like most people will never blog or publish online in the first place.

That’s why your readers need you. They need you to do the work for them, because they don’t want to become an expert. So, it’s your job to understand the complex and grasp the essentials, then make it simple, easy to read, and entertaining.

You’re on it, right?

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"Feeling of Security"

"Kennedy Space Center"

"Nuclear Test"

"no description"

via http://cosasvisuales.blogspot.com/search/label/dise%C3%B1o%20gr%C3%A1fico

via http://www.artnet.com/artwork/424967081/424891678/hong-hao-my-things-book-keeping-of-06a.html

Kevin Purdy via Lifehacker: Top shared by 4 people

Software and webapps rock at being calendars: You can update them from any computer or your phone, they don't have to triple-check when Columbus Day is, and they never get coffee stains on them. But your online or desktop calendar can do a lot more than just hold dates and tell you about them. Free programs and tweaks can integrate appointments into your email app, embed a whole-month view into your wallpaper, schedule birthdays without a single phone call, and improve your faulty memory for everything. Take a look at 10 free and customizable hacks you can apply to your own appointment-keeping system. Photo by Joe Lanman.

10. Share and schedule rooms and objects automatically.

Google Calendar offers a subtle, tucked-away little feature that can make renting out a projector or booking a conference room deadly simple. You can set up a calendar to auto-accept invitations that don't conflict with others. Even if you're just sharing a grill with some neighbors, it's a simple way to ensure everybody's on the level.

9. Carry your schedule on a compact calendar.

Unless you want to be that person, the one who interrupts conversation and distracts everyone by pulling out and pecking at a PDA, you're not going to have your calendar on you at all times. That doesn't mean you can't commit to dates, scope how long a project might take, and remind yourself of important dates with a compact calendar from designer David Seah. It fits in a wallet or on the edge of a notebook, and does what you need a calendar to do when you're not at your desk.

8. Add custom content with subscriptions.

You don't have to make all the content on a useful, productive calendar. In fact, you can automatically number your weeks, get daily weather forecasts, embed your Remember the Milk tasks, and add publicly-offered content at Google's gallery to track your favorite sports team, keep up on politics, or know what's new on DVD this week. It's helpful scheduling that you don't have to lift a finger to benefit from.

7. Find the best time for everyone in a big group to meet.

The Web 2.0 social-site explosion has created a wealth of scheduling services, but we've always liked the simplicity of tools like Doodle, where you just ask folks via email what times work for them, and the site returns the most compatible matches. Need more than just a time slot? fasterPlan creates web-based, customizable billboards, so you can ask which park works best for a reunion, who's a vegetarian, and so on. If nothing else, your over-burdened inbox will thank you.

6. Keep your calendar in plain text.

It's no secret we're fans of the command line around these parts, especially apps that let you add and control information as fast as you can type. That's exactly what Remind is. The app takes in simple text commands to add or display appointments, either in line-by-line text or ASCII-formatted grids. As shown in our guide to plain text calendar management, Remind is based on an old Unix tool, so Linux, OS X, and Windows users (using Cygwin) have equal access to it.

5. Keep up on Facebook friends' birthdays.

Prepare to have social networking service Facebook actually save you time you would've spent typing and clicking. The site already keeps track of all your friends' birthdays, but free plug-in fbCal makes them accessible to iCal-compliant calendar client. It might take a bit to get working, but once it does, you'll be seen as a gracious friend, one who's on top of even the most obscure third-cousin birthdays.

4. Embed Google Calendar into Gmail.

Gmail and Google Calendar already go well together, with Gmail able to detect and add appointments to GCal, and having them on the same page can serve as an Outlook-like "Today" page. Two Greasemonkey scripts for Firefox make it easy to embed GCal directly into your email: Gmail Addons pops your calendar (or any other web applet, really) in and out of any corner of Gmail, while GMailAgenda throws a vertical calendar rail into a right-hand rail. Want to add Remember the Milk's advanced task-management to your all-in-one start page? You can easily do that too.

3. Set your calendar to email your future self.

The "tickler" file is an idea that reporters, creative executives, and other old-school, productivity-minded types have been using for decades to stash away to-dos and ideas that don't come into play until later on. While modern calendar tools are great for accessibility and ease of use, they lack that ability to make you encounter things whether you want to or not—everything is, after all, dismiss-able with a mouse click. Gina wrote up a guide to setting Yahoo Calendar to tickle you automatically back in Lifehacker's earliest days, but the concepts and instructions are still relevant for Google Calendar, Outlook, or any system that can remind you.

2. Embed your calendar onto your desktop.

Whether you were the type to order one of those gigundo desktop calendars and use it as your ambient appointment reminder, or you just don't have a need for flashy desktop wallpaper, an embedded computer desktop calendar can do wonders for your memory. And you've got more than a few implementation options. Mac users can incorporate a text calendar and any other files onto their backdrop using GeekTool, Outlook devotees can use the appropriately-titled Outlook on the Desktop or text-based DeskTask, Windows (and Linux) workers can try the excellent Rainlendar widget, and Gina wrote up a guide to embedding any text on your desktop with Windows tool Samurize.

1. Sync Google Calendar to any desktop client.

There are, shockingly, times when computers aren't connected to the internet, and also times when heading to Google Calendar in a browser isn't as convenient as your on-demand calendar program. With the introduction of CalDAV support, Google Calendar can now perform two-way syncs with any desktop client, and Adam has taken the time to show us how. Even if you use a calendar site or app not described in the how-to, hooking up a publicly-accessible feed in the widely-supported GCal is usually a first step to taking your scheduling information anywhere you go.

Of course, these are just our own favorite calendar tricks, and each person has their own schedule-and-remember style. What calendar add-ons or third-party tools can't you live and work without? Which calendar features go unheralded? Share the good stuff in the comments.