Richard Sherman–Preparation Nut and Cornerback

Posted on May 12, 2014 by mbrowning

I find Richard Sherman a bit too mouthy and brash for my liking, but you can’t argue with the guy’s athletic ability. And why is he so good? He prepares like crazy! There’s a life lesson there for us all.

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Good Advice in Comic Form

Posted on March 23, 2014 by mbrowning

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Eighteen Things on Your To-Do List

Posted on March 6, 2014 by mbrowning

An interesting article names the eighteen habits of highly creative people. That’s a pretty long list, if you ask me, but it is interesting. Try this one on:

If there’s one thing that distinguishes highly creative people from others, it’s the ability to see possibilities where other don’t — or, in other words, vision. Many great artists and writers have said that creativity is simply the ability to connect the dots that others might never think to connect.

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Diagramming Orwell

Posted on March 3, 2014 by mbrowning

Did you ever have to diagram sentences in school? Here are some first sentences from famous novels diagrammed to perfection.

Orwell

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Theremins, Real and Virtual

Posted on February 24, 2014 by mbrowning

Check out Theremin, a very odd little audio synth with a web interface. Then hear a genuine theremin played by some guy with way too much time on his hands to learn this thing.

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Teddy Roosevelt and Reading

Posted on February 8, 2014 by mbrowning

Besides charging up San Juan Hill and serving a turn as President, Teddy Roosevelt had some interesting advice to readers. Here’s one of his ten points:

“Personally, the books by which I have profited infinitely more than by any others have been those in which profit was a by-product of the pleasure; that is, I read them because I enjoyed them, because I liked reading them, and the profit came in as part of the enjoyment.”

There’s not much room for pretense in Roosevelt’s universe.

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The Great Language Game

Posted on February 7, 2014 by mbrowning

LanguagePartners5

Want to feel totally ignorant? Play The Great Language Game where you are given multiple-choice options on identifying a language as it is spoken. Yikes, I stunk it up when I played.

 

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Concentration Training

Posted on February 2, 2014 by mbrowning

Do you find yourself zoning off when you should be paying attention to something, like, perhaps me in class. (I’ll let you figure out if I meant that YOU are zoning off when I’m speaking or if I am zoning off when I myself am talking. Or both.)

From the wonderous blog The Art of Manliness, here’s some bootcamp stuff for would-be concentrators. Eleven steps will have you being the most focused being on the planet.

Because the internet has made any bit of information instantly accessible, we tend to want to look something up the moment it crosses our mind. “I wonder what the weather will be like tomorrow?” “What year did that movie come out?” “I wonder what’s new in my Facebook feed?” Consequently, we’ll toggle away from what we’re working on the instant these questions or thoughts pop into our minds. Problem is, once we get distracted, it takes on average 25(!) minutes to return to our original task. Plus, shifting our attention back and forth drains its strength.

Give it a try. If it works, maybe I’ll give it a try.

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Remember the… the… Something

Posted on February 1, 2014 by mbrowning

Having just shared mind mapping, one of my favorite note-taking and memorizing techniques, with my Comp II classes this week, I was really struck with Joshua Foer’s TED Talk on memory feats. It’s worth twenty minutes of your time, I promise.

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Lewis Carroll’s Writing Advice

Posted on January 28, 2014 by mbrowning

Nearly 125 years ago (in 1890) Lewis Carroll provided eight rules for letter writers. While most of us do not write as many letters in a year as Carroll would have written in a week and while many of us never write a letter, this writing advice seems exceptionally good and surprisingly relevant in an age of MSNBC/FoxNews divisiveness and careless emailing. Take this tidbit for example:

4) When in doubt, err on the side of courtesy – ”If your friend makes a severe remark, either leave it unnoticed, or make your reply distinctly less severe: and if he makes a friendly remark, tending towards ‘making up’ the little difference that has arisen between you, let your reply be distinctly more friendly. If, in picking a quarrel, each party declined to go more than three-eighths of the way, and if, in making friends, each was ready to go five-eighths of the way—why, there would be more reconciliations than quarrels!

Wouldn’t that be nice? You can read the whole enchilada here.

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