25 OCT 2017 by ideonexus
CREW Method of Curation
CREW stands for Continuous Review Evaluation and Weeding, and the manual uses “crew” as a transitive verb, so one can talk about a library’s “crewing” its collection. It means weeding but doesn’t sound so harsh. At the heart of the CREW method is a formula consisting of three factors—the number of years since the last copyright, the number of years since the book was last checked out, and a collection of six negative factors given the acronym MUSTIE, to help decide if a book has... 1 
notes
notes20 DEC 2014 by ideonexus
The Moving Goalposts of Success
The absence of disease is not health. Here's how we get to health: We need to reverse the formula for happiness and success. In the last three years, I've traveled to 45 different countries, working with schools and companies in the midst of an economic downturn. And what I found is that most companies and schools follow a formula for success, which is this: If I work harder, I'll be more successful. And if I'm more successful, then I'll be happier. That undergirds most of our parenting style... 1 notes
notes15 OCT 2014 by ideonexus
The Conflict of What We Desire to Do and What We Are Able...
What if someone who had the potential to discover a formula to unlock the mysteries of the universe wanted to become a pulp fiction writer?
What if someone who had the potential to create unparalleled gastronomic delicacies had his heart set on civil engineering?
There is what we desire to do, and what we are able to do. When those two things don't coincide, which path should we pursue to find happiness?Folksonomies: purpose
Folksonomies: purpose
1 notes
notes23 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
The Watson/Holmes Modes of Thought
As Holmes reminds us,
“Like all other arts, the Science of
Deduction and Analysis is one which can
only be acquired by long and patient study
nor is life long enough to allow any mortal
to attain the highest possible perfection in
it.” But it’s also more than mere fancy. In
essence, it comes down to one simple
formula: to move from a System Watson–
to a System Holmes–governed thinking
takes mindfulness plus motivation. (That,
and a lot of practice.) Mindfulness, in the
sense of cons...Folksonomies: mindfulness
Folksonomies: mindfulness
1 notes
notesWatson is on autopilot, Holmes is mindfulness.
18 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Chinese Cultural Innovations Turned to Ritual
When Europeans first arrived in China, three hundred years a^ago, they found that almost all the arts had reached a certain degree of perfection there, and they were surprised that a people which had attained this point should not have gone beyond it. At a later period they discovered traces of some higher branches of science that h had been lost. The nation was absorbed in productive industry; the greater part of its scientific processes had been preserved, but science itself no longer exist...
1 
1 An account of the amazing art and inventions found in China, but how these had turned into unquestioned rituals--performed exactly over and over again through the ages without alteration or innovation. The culture had stagnated.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Science Must be Private
The feeling of understanding is as private as the feeling of pain. The act of understanding is at the heart of all scientific activity; without it any ostensibly scientific activity is as sterile as that of a high school student substituting numbers into a formula. For this reason, science, when I push the analysis back as far as I can, must be private. 1 notes
notesBecause understanding is a private feeling, and science is an activity of understanding.
03 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
ReWriting Principle: Kill Your Darlings
Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts. This suggest cutting to speed the pace, and that’s what most of us end up having to do (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings)...I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor w...Folksonomies: writing
Folksonomies: writing
Stephen King's formula for producing a second draft involves cutting 10 percent of it in order to improve the pace of the text, meaning you must cut parts that you personally really like.
