Showing posts with label thinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thinking. Show all posts

2013-11-11

"Reading Isn't Free. The Cost Is Opening Your Mind To New Perspectives"

Today, as I was riding my bike 3.5 miles to play volleyball, I thought up of a new tagline for my blog, "Anonsage. Think. Do. Learn."

The old tagline was, "Thinking about thinking about thinking. Don't be stuck in a paradigm, facts change." And, I really like that one. I might even use it again. Or at least feed it to one of my sub-blogs to use for awhile. But, now, I think I have a better line, only because my old lines has been in use for such a long time.

"Reading isn't free. The cost is opening your mind."

Here's some other variations of it that I was thinking of:

  • Reading isn't free. The cost is opening your mind to new perspectives.
    • Personally, this might be my favorite because it has "new perspective" in it. But, in order to be Simply Advanced™, I have to limit things if not too much is taken away. I hope "cost is opening your mind" makes enough sense. Perhaps, I'll try both in some A/B testing. I would like to see which version aligns with readers better.
  • The cost of reading is opening your mind [to new perspectives].
    • It's short and sweet, but I don't think it is as powerful as, "Reading isn't free".
  • The cost of listening is opening your mind to new perspectives.
    • This is a more general quote, which is more useful when in a non-reading context.

I could think of others right now, but my blog posts have recently been getting on the really long side. So, I'll leave it up as an exercise to the reader to think of more variations on "reading is not free".

In my first used version of this, it will have to be "Reading isn't free. The cost is opening your mind to new ideas and perspectives." even though it is a little longer. I hope readers will better understand what happens in this blog. But, I'm still really thinking about taking out the "ideas" part... hmmm...

~ Simply Advanced ~

ps - At the time of this writing, Google search returns no results for any of these quotes/taglines in quotations (",").



2013-06-24

Idea: The Natural World Describes Human Tendencies

(Title was going to be something like "Spontaneity in the Living Room", but I felt this needed an easier way to ease people into this post full of science-y words, for real)

Background:
Yesterday, I was cleaning my apartment's living room and purposely rearranged the entire living room to make the cleaning part more efficient. Also, I like the idea of changing the scenery from the usual every now and then. All the furniture is pushed to one side of the room (the far side). Then, looking at the arrangement, this got me thinking...

Pre-Idea:
This is not an optimal setup for a room. It is not very usable, beside the large open floor space. The side with all the furniture also feels really crowded.

Idea:
By leaving all of the furniture out of the way, the room will naturally fall into a local optimum form that allows us to accomplish whatever we need to. The way I generalized this phenomenon yesterday was saying nature tends towards equilibrium, and less chaos, as long as there is enough activation energy.

Conclusion:
- Spontaneity describes physics as well as human nature in this real-world application.
- I can use chemistry/physics terms to describe and graph and human nature.

~ Simply Advanced ~



2013-05-18

I've Been Around the Sun 24 Times

"I've Been Around the Sun 24 Times"

For some reason, putting age in this form makes it seem like such a smaller number than saying 24 years old.

Saying, "24 years young" seems to me to be more trying to convince others that one is young through verbal manipulation. It's a good smile.

Anyways, just extending on more ways to show passage of time..

  • I am just two Jupiter-years young.
  • I'm almost one Saturn-year old.
  • I'm 24 years of age.
  • I'm as old as a 24-year-old tree.

~ Simply Advanced ~

ps - There is no particular reason that I'm talking about age except that my weekly news feed includes a collection of trending Quora posts and I go to thinking.

http://xkcd.com/1053/



2013-05-16

The Outer Limits (Television Show) New Jesus

There are many great episodes that come to mind specifically when I think about The Twilight Zone or The Other Limits. Each one of them expand your thinking to new dimensions or allows you to see something in a new light.

It took quite a searches to find one episode in particular regarding religion. I tried to search queries such as, "the twilight zone new jesus", "the outer limits (tv show) religion", and many more searches that progressively got longer until something like "(tv show OR movie OR video) guy preaches, bible in his hand gets shot, he dies and he replaces jesus". Those long queries didn't even help so I had to start looking through each of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limit shows' summaries one by one until I found the show that I was looking for.

The main episode I was interested shows a sample of what blind religion is and could be: The Outer Limit's "Revival" episode.

Whilst looking for that episode I found another interesting one that I kept running into when looking for the above show. It's about finding the DNA of Jesus and using in vitro fertilization to bring about the second coming of Jesus: The Outer Limit's "The Shroud" episode.

I could explain the full videos in just a few paragraphs in order for the reader to save more time, but I wouldn't want to take away from how awesome the series of The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone are. Even though I talk about and link to two of The Outer Limits shows, in my opinion The Twilight Zone is better overall. The later expands one thinking in even more directions.

~ Simply Advanced ~



2013-05-06

Brainstorming - The Bad Idea Theory

Imagine you are in a group trying to brainstorm. One of the worst things that could happen is nobody talking and each person thinking that another is going to come up with the great idea . There are a few ways to get around this:

First, the overall premise for creativity is divergent, then convergent thinking; First, one must expand their thinking, then follow up with narrowing down the many different ideas/tangents to something to act upon.

Method A - Use the Bad Idea Theory. Another person calls it the McDonald's Theory. Basically, when nobody has any ideas, one should suggest a really bad idea. After that, ideas will magically be thought of by others. Others in the brainstorming group will know that whatever they say can't possibly be any worse than what was first said.

Method 1 - Think individually, collectively. This method involves paper and pencil. Everybody starts off with a blank sheet of paper. The idea is for everybody in the group to write down at least three "random" things related to the topic at hand, then pass the paper to the left. Then, the next person should expand on whatever is written down on the paper. Continue passing all the papers around until all have written on it, then continue talking about each of the papers as a group. This method has the benefits of thinking solo and thinking as a group. Though, it may take a little longer, good ideas are worth it.

Method a - Round robin. Or whiteboard. Typical case, there should be a "leader" of the pack which specifically asks each person what they are thinking so that everybody contributes. Each person has had different experiences in their life. This is the most common because it is the easiest.

What are some other group brainstorming ideas?

May the 6th be with you, (you can think of a better exit line than that? VSRNE,)
~ Simply Advanced ~

ps - No examples given, because thinking is good for your health.



2013-02-25

Talking to Myself

We all talk to ourselves whether it is aloud or not.

Another word for "talking to yourself" is "thinking". When you are thinking, there is typically a conversation of whether or not something should be done or what should be said.

The only time you aren't talking to yourself is when you are strictly doing, which is a tough thing to do. Certain substances limit inhibitors. Which, in turn, arguably allows for more creativity. Free writing is also great practice in "strictly doing" aka creativity.

~ Simply Advanced ~

ps - My initial seed of an idea for this post was just "Talking to myself = Thinking from different perspectives." And, originally, that's all this post was going to say. I didn't want to talk about creativity in this post because I have a lot to say about it, but not enough time. Hence, the abrupt stop.



2013-02-22

Procrastination Hack - Limit the Time Between Thinking and Doing

"Limit the time between thinking and doing." - Procrastination hack.

I'm sure I've read about this somewhere else, but I didn't find it with a quick "exact-phrase" search.

The goal is to stop putting so many items on a todo list and just do them as you think of them. One of the benefits is that you actually get stuff done rather than just thinking about it.

If you are actively participating in an activity or task, then you clear your mind of another task by writing it down. Current evolution of humans allows us to truly excel at just one task at a time. When we try to do more than one thing at a time, results are typically less than doing each of them individually.

Since I feel this needs an example.. Off the top of my head: I can juggle whilst riding a bike (multitask). But, if I were to do either of them individually, then it would be done much better.

~ Simply Advanced ~



2013-01-28

Obol - The Never-Soggy Cereal Bowl and Its Future

I saw the Obol in Brookstone over a month ago and really liked the idea of having the cereal and milk separate in order for the cereal to stay crispy the entire time you are eating.

Recently, I saw a post about it a food blog and started thinking about the idea of Obol again.

Imagine yourself eating out of a regular bowl of cereal with milk. The best bites are the first few because the cereal is the most crispy at that point. But, there is at least two more reasons why the first few bites are typically the best of the bunch. Point number three below I believe affects people on a more psychological level.

At the beginning of eating:

  1. Cereal is still crispy
  2. Milk is the coldest
  3. It is easiest to get a huge scoop of cereal on the spoon!

After determining that these are the reasons why I truly like cereal (besides the overall great taste), it is easy to determine that the Obol is does not significantly help me eat and enjoy my daily cereal. Obol performs task one very well. Task two is iffy. It may take longer for me to eat the bowlful of cereal, thus the milk will be warmer by the end (I am a cereal milk drinker). Obol fails at number three. By only putting a little bit of cereal in the milk compartment, the cereal spreads throughout the entire surface area of the milk, causing me trouble when I try to get a large scoop of cereal on my spoon. If I put any more than a little bit of cereal in the milk compartment, then I might as well be using a regular cereal bowl instead.

An idea for a bowl is to throw it in the refrigerator or freezer overnight and in the morning you can enjoy colder milk for a longer period of time! I haven't actually tried this out yet, but I will! Number two improved.

Another idea for a bowl to add a little vertical strainer on the coming out from the side. Milk will be able to go through the strainer, but the cereal will not. This could be a clip-on that would fit most bowls. Maybe it just have a little lip on it that allow it to sit on an edge. The idea is that you can gather up all the cereal to one side of the strainer, then a big scoop of cereal will be easy again. You could potentially just swirl your milk with the spoon and like magic, the cereal will all be gathered in one place. Number three vastly improved!!

http://www.obol.co/images/


~ Simply Advanced ~



2012-12-30

Random Ideas and Thoughts - 20121230

[0] First thing, a little blurt about the number in the title. It is the date format that I'm using and liking very much to organize all of my folder and files. They are all automatically sorted in chronological order because of the name. One example, I used to label my school folders as "USF 2012 Spring" and "USF 2012 Fall" and "USF 2012 Summer." But, first of all it is not in an efficient order. And secondly, it doesn't look very neat. Within the past six months I've transitioned everything to the style of "USF201201", "", and "". It is more efficient, neater, and doesn't lose much readability if you can recognize the 2012 year in there.

..Remember, all of the following are fragmented thoughts, random, and does not have a reason... completely unlike what I try to accomplish above with the year-month-day format. =b

[1] A rollercoaster ride that feels like it is broken (and may fall at any moment). When there is a real problem with the ride (how would they know?), the ride tells the potential riders that workers must break the ride more before riders can ride again.

[2] Full theme park that is purposely seemingly empty. Some park goers are actors/hires (theme park goers would never know about this part). Couples may want to team up randomly in the park with others so that they are not totally alone, but that might just be their mistake.

[3] What birds are poisonous? [I was playing a quiz game and was the first to know that platypus was poisonous. The question was something like, "Which of the following is poisonous?" Egret was one of the answers, then this thought occurred]

[4] Are there fish ball/cages like there are hamster balls/cages? Maybe the fish can learn to travel by shifting their weight?

[5] "I cried because I had no shoes, until I saw a man with no feet." [A quote I saw in a book. A good thought provoker]

[6] Hobby: Making lists with only one item. ["Hobby:" - kind of like xkcd style]

[7] App for how long you have been away from Facebook and/or Gmail. [There should be a high scores list also (and the ability to share with friends?)]

[8] Dubstep without echo is kinda like classical music. And vise-versa.

[9] Write a book called, "Dan Writes a Book"

[10] Redit for Research Papers. Thumb up and thumb down. [I believe there are social medias revolving around research..]

[11] Proxy for Twitter API calls. Twitter limits the number of calls a day from an IP, but if you keep switching the IPs when they fail, then you have have a whole lot more available API calls. This service can be made into an API.

[12] Web App: Display the bibliography for every page of the internet. Choose type from a dropdown menu. (20121201)

[13] Cloth that you can put on when you are wet, and stay dry and warm without worrying about the inside of cloth getting/staying wet.

[14] Moving shade. Ex: when sunbathing and you want to keep the sun out of your eyes only. [But, not touching you, I guess?]

[15] Clothes that don't turn inside out in the wash. A temporary solution would be to either stitch the main (large) opening clothes, or by just using a pin to keep it closed, that way the smaller parts of the clothes won't be able to go through and turn the entire cloth inside out.

[16] App using Windows live tiles: Simply Advanced Countdown Tile. Days until whenever.. Or weeks until whenever.. Or years until whenever.. Ability to add picture relating to event like birthday, holiday, anniversary..

[17] App for Windows 8: A piano lock screen. Play a song to unlock the screen. Future version (or paid version) would include different instruments.

[18] App: Top-down, zoomed out game. In order for your avatar to get from one town to another, the user must actually go on a physical run or walk for a certain distance to get there. Start off with small distances, gradually get longer for more advanced areas of the game.

[19] App: What if you could see/visualize smells, smell colors/sounds app. Hearing colors is possible to do now... Synesthesia. [Slogan: "Synesthesia, now available on your smartphone!" Introduce it during Synesthesia Awareness Month?]

[20] Going to do dishes in the sink? Then get energy back from the water you use! Same for shower heads, or any other place that you run water. Perhaps the base of a hose line?

Feel free to comment, email me, make use of these ideas (let me know how it goes), or brainstorm other things from these. Please try not to draw conclusions from this post, it is purely a thinking exercise, half of it unconsciously thought of. Words in square brackets, [], are what I added at the time of writing.

~ Simply Advanced ~

ps - Doing this also allows me to clear out much of my ideas folder, thus, forcing me to come up with new awesome random things. The several ideas I didn't share are ideas are ones that I have for a thesis/paper that I'm currently working on. They will be shared in a year or few.



2012-11-28

Blame the Brain

It's not my fault that my brain decided not to remember _______.

EDIT: "I tried, but my brain took over."

EDIT2: Dang conscious thinking not as smart as sub-conscious thinking.

EDIT3: "The brain didn't name itself, I did."

EDIT4: Talking to myself too.

~ Simply Advanced ~