I’m finally on a new platform and have full control of my content on
Squarespace. Shortly, I’m going to register a new domain for this website and
have this be my new home. Those who have migrated from my Tumblr need not worry
because I will still update that with photos and random short-form items that I
see not fit for this blog. The reason for the switch is that I want to be able
to express thoughts, show weird experiments I’m doing, and keep a journal-like
blog where I can add pictures, links, videos with ease and not worry that I can
only add one of those per post via Tumblr. Also, I’m not concise enough to be
tweeting every post either. And I’ve tried Wordpress before and ran a
semi-popular podcasting reviewing website in the past, and though I did like
their system, I feel Squarespace is more robust and can actually do a lot more.
In the coming weeks, look out for updates. I’m going to start tweeting more
about this too to promote my website and my work. I’m also taking up photography
again to really showcase myself. So comment and tell me if I leave out anything,
like a “like” button on Facebook (which I’m not adding yet, but not completely
morally against), or a “pin it” button.
I leave you this quote on the shape of things to come.
“They may not remember what you said, but they’ll certainly remember how you made them feel.”
It’s a fine time to be young. Often we tell ourselves that the youth are wasting
their time doing nothing of use like playing video games or lounging around
watching Netflix. But that’s simply not the truth. The youth community is
thriving. They grow out of the product of their role models, adults. And when
you ask some parents what kind of cool things their children are doing, the best
answers come out when children find their own hobbies. What I have here are
strategies to help ease the youth into doing their own thing. It’s more of a
template of what you could do rather than what you should do. It’s a choose-
your-own adventure type advice that goes anywhere your interests lie.
I’m starting to ready Clay Shirky’s book, “Cognitive Surplus,” which delves into
how it’s not technology we should blame for our social problems, but rather how
we interact with and use the technology. During prohibition, it wasn’t the
alcohol that was the big issue, but rather our interaction with it. We, as
adults, take on the lazy youth issue as a problem with technology, such as the
Internet and television, that their mere presence is bad. But, from what we
have gathered before, that isn’t true at all.
And kids have it awesome these days. I wanted to pursue more things as an
adolescence. I self-taught myself a few things, but I lacked some guidance on
how to really go about learning something new. It would have helped to have an
adult talk to me about how they learned to do something, or at least how they
attempted to do something. Growing up, my dad knew all these things about home
and car repair, and I wanted to take that knowledge from him without asking how
to do any of those things. Of course, I did sit around and watch him at work,
but it wasn’t the same without his input. And as a result, I never knew why you
use certain joints for wood, what the carburetor does, and how to drive stick
(though in truth, my dad doesn’t want to be anywhere near a manual shift car
because he loves automatics, so there is no point in asking him).
My sister, reaching the peak of her teenage years asked me to share some of my
knowledge of how to go about doing things. I wrote a lengthy essay-formed
response to her explaining how I would go about doing projects. The point of
projects is you have to enjoy it and you don’t care where it leads. If those
requirements aren’t met, it probably wasn’t worth doing the project in the first
place. This idea of projects isn’t new to me, and it’s familiar with those who
have read Cal Newport’s book, “How To Be A High School Superstar.”
Here’s an excerpt of what I sent my sister.
Apprenticeships used to be the way of learning the essential skills of how to
be a master at any field. You’d be passed down to a mentor who can show you
these skills, for example blacksmithing, and how the art and craft of creating
a tool involves precision and hand-eye coordination. There’s the foundation
steps to creating any tool that is taught by these mentors before one
understands how any tool can be manufactured.
How does it apply to you? Well, first off, it’s the foundation steps in learning
anything. You start to realize your potential in learning a topic of your
choice, and if you fall out of interest with it, it doesn’t mean the end all be
all because hundreds if not thousands have also been though the struggle where
only a few make it. When searching to acquire skills to make you more
presentable for college recruiters, you must understand how hard it is to grasp
something as hard as whatever you want to attain. Also, college is a way to
further pursuits you have rather than to blindly follow what other are doing
because it’s the ‘hot’ thing to do. Really focus on what you like and know
there’s an uphill battle wherever that takes you.”
The email was directed towards her struggles to stand out from the crowd.
There’s an issue with getting into college as a teenager today, but that’s a
completely different topic that I may dwell on in the future.
Thanks for reading my rant. If you have any counter arguments, or any supportive
evidence, please comment below.
The mental aspects of tennis and how they can be applied to achieve peak performance in the sport and beyond, like the inner game, relaxed concentration, and the mind/body connection.
At first, I was a bit hesitant about this website because when I try to learn music theory by myself, there’s a lot of unnecessary for most practical musicians.
Their book of music theory for pop music is a great primer for many beginners and intermediate musicians.
It’s fairly easy to understand the ‘rules’ of how chord progressions work, in relation to pop music.
The downfall is the amount of content, for example it doesn’t go through 7th chords.
For under $15 in the iTunes, it isn’t enough for me, but it gives a lot of examples if you’re “pop-literate” because the examples are playable within the book (from my iPad).
I must say that the cool interface for hook theory’s music editor is actually quite intuitive after reading the quite tutorial.
It uses a relative scale, so creating accidentals or other notes other than the 7 (plus octaves above and below) aren’t possible for the melody.
But what’s cool is that you can create separate harmony and melody with their divided play area and export your final song into a midi file.
For being in Beta, it’s worth a check out.
They also have over 1,300 songs archived in this format, though most of the songs aren’t the complete songs, just so you are aware.
Instead of doing a book review this week, I thought of doing something different. I’ve watched way too many films over the last few years and have started writing down every movie I’ve watched since January 2010. Here’s a quick review that’s five words long for each movie I’ve watched back during the month of April 2012.
