Fred "slacktivist" Clark tells a story of an urban legend, a debunking, and two reactions. Short and (bitter)sweet.

Via kirabug, a proper description of the instinctive drowning response:

1. Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.
   
2. Drowning people’s mouths ( Read more... )

Hi! I'm going to talk to you about morality, because I'm arrogant and you're imperfect ( Read more... )

coppervale, yesterday, wrote a bit On Becoming a Writer where he approvingly quotes a rule Harlan Ellison said to him: "You're not a writer until a writer tells you you're a writer."

gregvaneekhout begged to differ, and suggests that "the designation 'writer' can only come from the act of doing it ( Read more... )

(I heard this story in a first-year art class I took as an elective ( Read more... )

As a sociological relic, The Art of Thinking by Ernest Dimnet is an interesting book.

As a book of advice, The Art of Thinking by Ernest Dimnet is a superb book - but you may save a great deal of time by a simple method: turn immediately to Part Three and stop immediately upon reaching Part Four.

Some quotes:

1-About saving time.Is there no time ( Read more... )

Some good advice, acquired via the Battleship Puzzle-A-Day Desk Calendar: when you have made a list of possibilities and have eliminated all but one, try to eliminate that one too. If you find that you can, you will know you have made an error.

From Making Light: A Japanese company, Genepax, has announced and demonstrated a new fuel cell system that runs on water.Allow me to be careful for a moment. This is important enough - and I happen to be well-trained enough in the relevant field - to make strong statements about, and I do not want to leave a false impression ( Read more... )

So I was pounding away at the grading, and my mind started to drift, and, well...

Raise not hypocrisy to the stature of a Great Sin! To prove hypocrisy is to prove moral failing, but to prove moral failing is nothing if it is not done to correct, and to prove hypocrisy corrects nothing. Instead treat each hypocrite as herself, and ask: which of ( Read more... )