Better Quest

fail better.

Month: September 2014

Well, I’m not saying I’m like, ALLOWED to do this…

An awesome, educational, fair use-using post about studying, recognizing, and appreciating components of visual storytelling.

So I want you to watch this movie and think only about staging, how the shots are built and laid out, what the rules of movement are, what the cutting patterns are. See if you can reproduce the thought process that resulted in these choices by asking yourself: why was each shot—whether short or long—held for that exact length of time and placed in that order? Sounds like fun, right? It actually is. To me. Oh, and I’ve removed all sound and color from the film, apart from a score designed to aid you in your quest to just study the visual staging aspect. Wait, WHAT? HOW COULD YOU DO THIS? Well, I’m not saying I’m like, ALLOWED to do this, I’m just saying this is what I do when I try to learn about staging…

Hit the link at the very bottom for a soundless, black and white version of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Ask yourself what modes of study IP law is functionally preventing. [hint: some interesting ones]

via A one-of-a-kind marketplace from Steven Soderbergh. – Extension 765.

Sandro Miller: Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to photographic masters | Catherine Edelman Gallery

Nothing to add. Go see the pictures. (seriously. go.)

via Sandro Miller: Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to photographic masters | Catherine Edelman Gallery.

An email signature to encourage encryption use | parker higgins dot net

ToDo list: added.

I prefer to use encrypted email. My public key fingerprint is 4FF3 AA1B D29E 1638 32DE C765 9433 5F88 9A36 7709. Learn how to encrypt your email with the Email Self Defense guide.

via An email signature to encourage encryption use | parker higgins dot net.

Being the Worst

What a great idea.

“I don’t have anything against Yelp. The idea is fantastic, but the blackmailing thing is ferocious,” says Cerretini. “I think I should be the one deciding if I’m on the site or not. At least I can be there on my terms. The only power they have is they make you reliable to them. So, I’m going to be one of the most unreliable restaurants.”

“I want to be the worst restaurant there is in the Bay Area,” he says. “I think this is the best business move I have made in years.”

via Inside Scoop SF » Richmond restaurant encourages bad Yelp reviews.

I took what was weird
repackaged it whole
sealed it in plastic
up-charged for in stores

and for a small fee
— I loan my IP —
you can license
repackaged-sealed-weird
just like me
(but not for free)

Hypo-quandary of the Week

♥ — 5 Useful Articles is great.

While on an expedition in Indonesia, a nature photographer’s equipment is hijacked by a roving band of artistic monkeys. One of them snaps a photograph of herself. The photographer recovers his camera and posts the picture to the internet. A designer creates a 3D model based on the picture, and uses a 3D printer to make this.

The designer also uploads the file of the model (monkeyselfie.ztl) to Thingiverse. Parker downloads and edits the file, mounting the monkey’s head onto a centaur’s body of his own creation. Can the designer sue Parker? Assume any litigation takes place in the Second Circuit.

via Takedown My Breath Away: 5 Useful Articles – Vol. 1 Issue 23.

algorithms are values.

What a terrifying—and true—statement about our times:

algorithms are values.

via Twitter Respected Our Choices Until It Didn’t – My Linux Rig.

Why Flunking Exams Is Actually a Good Thing – NYTimes.com

Very interesting quotes on the proper balance of study and practice. The article relates the idea that pre-testing (i.e. failing) primes the brain for future success by opening different neural pathways than studying a single question:answer relationship.

The quickest way to master that Shakespearean sonnet, in other words, is to spend the first third of your time memorizing it and the remaining two-thirds of the time trying to recite it from memory.

Further, it expands on the processes of remembering, studying, and guessing. Of the three, guessing is the most likely scenario to result in failure, and this failure once again inspires a fuller listing of associations to spur memory.

Retrieval — i.e. remembering — is a different mental act than straight studying; the brain is digging out a fact, together with a network of associations, which alters and enriches how that network is subsequently re-stored. But guessing is distinct from both study and retrieval. It too will reshape our mental networks by embedding unfamiliar concepts (the lend-lease program, the confirmation bias, the superego) into questions we at least partly comprehend (“Name one psychological phenomenon that skews our evaluation of evidence”). Even if the question is not entirely clear and its solution unknown, a guess will in itself begin to link the questions to possible answers. And those networks light up like Christmas lights when we hear the concepts again.

It seems clear that this linking of failure, guessing, and higher test scores — derived from more complex mental associations — may contribute more directly to creativity.

via Why Flunking Exams Is Actually a Good Thing – NYTimes.com.

Non-Ambiguous Tasks

The dishes clearly need to be washed. There’s no ambiguity about whether it’s a necessary task and when you’re washing the dishes, it only takes a tiny portion of your attention — a tiny portion of your mind — and so the rest of your mind just wanders around drifting and stumbling across all sorts of interesting shit. And then when you’re done, it’s clearly done. You say: Yep, moving on to my next task. And honestly, I don’t exactly know how to phrase it, but that was the most pleasant aspect of the whole thing. My day was a series of discrete things that I knew that I wanted to do, and I knew when they were done and none of them were lingering. At night, I had achieved them and they were done and it was all off my plate and there was nothing hanging there for later. It made me nostalgic for manual labor.

via 5 Things You Learn When You Take a Yearlong Break From Facebook, Twitter, and Work (nymag.com).

The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection – Boing Boing

I’m relieved to learn that someone has taken the time to codify terms and phrases related to pre- and post-web. There are currently—and increasingly will be—reasons to mourn what we have already lost. We should also celebrate the many advantages.

Straddle Generation

Neither Digital Natives nor wholly Digital Immigrants; they were born in the 1980s and will be the last people to remember life without the Internet. After she got text-dumped, Stacey was determined to only date Straddle Gen guys. “They’re so Romantic!”

via The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection – Boing Boing.

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