The Blue Duck

Pawel Kuczynski

Fri, 10 May 2013 21:26:17 -0700

Pawel Kuczynski

judy-huang: This Is Water - David Foster Wallace Amazingly,...

Thu, 09 May 2013 08:30:22 -0700

judy-huang:

This Is Water - David Foster Wallace

Amazingly, frighteningly true.

allthisandhips: Now all other cotton candy is just boring.

Thu, 09 May 2013 01:03:47 -0700

allthisandhips:

Now all other cotton candy is just boring.

Life Waits for No One.

Wed, 08 May 2013 02:52:51 -0700

Leaving it all behind isn’t for everyone. it takes a strong person. you WILL feel alone, you WILL doubt your decision, but if it’s something you’ve always wanted to do you will be grateful in the end and you’ll become a better version of yourself. If you truly want something out of life, go get it. Period. Let nothing stop you. That death bed is coming for you, same as it is for everyone else. Are you okay with spending your time where you are for the rest of your life? Or would you look back with regret? We get so caught up in life we forget that we only have this one chance to do what we love. Don’t be curious forever… go find out. Go after what you want. The price was steep, but i paid it gladly. It was an investment in myself. In the end the decision must be based on the real question you must ask yourself. The question: WHO do you want to be? Not WHAT do you want to be. The person who left, or the person who stayed?

Reposted from Reddit

Tweenbots by Kacie Kinzer: Given their extreme vulnerability,...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:52:07 -0700

Tweenbots by Kacie Kinzer:

Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot, I initially conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination. Because I built them with minimal technology, I had no way of tracking the Tweenbot’s progress, and so I set out on the first test with a video camera hidden in my purse. I placed the Tweenbot down on the sidewalk, and walked far enough away that I would not be observed as the Tweenbot––a smiling 10-inch tall cardboard missionary––bumped along towards his inevitable fate.

The results were unexpected. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, “You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”

The Tweenbot’s unexpected presence in the city created an unfolding narrative that spoke not simply to the vastness of city space and to the journey of a human-assisted robot, but also to the power of a simple technological object to create a complex network powered by human intelligence and asynchronous interactions. But of more interest to me, was the fact that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object. The journey the Tweenbots take each time they are released in the city becomes a story of people’s willingness to engage with a creature that mirrors human characteristics of vulnerability, of being lost, and of having intention without the means of achieving its goal alone. As each encounter with a helpful pedestrian takes the robot one step closer to attaining it’s destination, the significance of our random discoveries and individual actions accumulates into a story about a vast space made small by an even smaller robot.

Simply Amazing.

Priceonomics Blog: Do Elite Colleges Discriminate Against Asians?

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:30:45 -0700

Priceonomics Blog: Do Elite Colleges Discriminate Against Asians?:

priceonomics:

Applying to colleges in the United States is a stressful, competitive process. In 1970, the acceptance rate at Stanford University was 22.4%. Today, only 5.7% of applicants are accepted into the school. Across the country, nearly every top school like Harvard, MIT and Yale are…

setlightrun: starwarsgroup: No, this is a variation on a...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:30:33 -0700

setlightrun:

starwarsgroup:

No, this is a variation on a circle parry and a counter circle parry. Both are commonly taught in French and Italian style foil fencing.

A circle parry is when you avoid your opponents blade by moving your blade around theirs in a circle. A counter circle parry is circling around your opponents circle so that they can’t get their blade past to stab you.

When two fencers know each other well, this often happens. It becomes a game of chicken, it only ends when someone is willing to risk leaving an opening so that they can launch a different attack.

The foil version of this happens at least once a practice on my college fencing team. The only difference is that the blades are horizontal rather than diagonal.

This reminded me about how much I wanted to take up fencing.

And become a Jedi.

But I’ll take what I can get.

Why not just a feint-attack?

c-harm: ..Psychology, ack.

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:30:40 -0700

c-harm:

..Psychology, ack.

theworldofchinese: Making tea,Like a sir Having been lost for...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:40:00 -0700

theworldofchinese:

Making tea,Like a sir

Having been lost for hundreds of years, a brand new tea culture has been rejuvenated by tea expert Zhang Zhifeng (章志峰) in Fujian Province. It’s not just tea; it’s a canvas. When you think of beverage art, a hot latte comes to mind, but Zhang argues that his techniques are more complicate because there is only one liquid involved—tea soup (茶汤 chátāng), a mixture of grinded tea leaves and hot water. With a bamboo scoop, he is able to draw and write on the surface of the tea soup, and these patterns hold up for two to four hours.

Zhang got his inspiration in college when he was puzzled by a term found in historical records to describe a special tea ceremony, fencha (分茶, tea separation) or chabaixi (茶百戏, a hundred tricks with tea). None of his professors were able to explain it clearly except that it is only found in Japanese tea ceremonies nowadays. After digging through more ancient texts, Zhang pieced together the details of the practice which was once popular in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Emperor Huizong of Song (宋徽宗, 1082-1135), a famous art’s patron, poet, painter, calligrapher and musician himself, performed fencha during a royal banquet for his guests. The emperor’s hobby soon became the hottest trend among aristocrats and artists alike. To perform calligraphy and painting on tea was also praised as a tasteful skill among the educated. Many poems written during that time could offer evidence to the trend. In one poem, poet Yang Wangli (杨万里) captured the patterns of wandering clouds high in the sky and changing reflections in a river at one fenchaceremony performed by a monk: 纷如擘絮行太空，影落寒江能万变 (fēn rú bāi xù xíng tàikōng, yǐng luò hán jiāng néng wàn biàn). Later, people even started to hold tea competitions, called doucha (斗茶), comparing the quality, taste, color and patterns of their tea.

Read More…

nevver: Work

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 08:30:33 -0700

nevver:

Work

Why are Young People Boring?

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 08:30:29 -0700

A 40 year old who has aged and taken the lessons of age and maturity doesn’t hang out with 20 year olds because they’re boring. This isn’t an insult, it’s just a recognition of the way the maturing process works. At 20, people are still figuring out how the world works. They like to talk about basic but highly abstract philosophical things. By the time you’re 40, you have hashed all that stuff out already and have moved on to applying all that basic stuff to the real world. Just like a college level mathematics student would find 4th graders talking about long division dull, so to do 40 year olds find 20-somethings talking about life boring.

Reposted from Reddit

The Sokal Affair

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 08:30:21 -0700

The Sokal Affair :

“a pastiche of left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense…structured around the silliest quotations [by postmodernist academics] he could find about mathematics and physics”

Photo

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 08:30:19 -0700

Photo

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:30:22 -0700

incidentalcomics: Tie Chi

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 19:13:09 -0700

incidentalcomics:

Tie Chi

The Art of the Hustler

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 08:30:23 -0700

There is a fundamental disconnect between the way most people see a hustler and what a hustler sees when she or he looks in the mirror. On a bad day, a hustler sees themselves as someone who needs to improve drastically. On a good day, a hustler sees themselves as someone who could have done something different to improve their hustle. The consistency is the fact that a hustler always strives to be better.

The Art of a Hustler is not simple. In fact, it’s quite complex and the combination of a variety of different attributes are what truly make a hustler in the modern sense of the word an outstanding professional and the key to many organizations success and growth.

The first piece to recognize is that there is key difference between wanting to be a hustler and becoming a hustler. This is an issue sweeping North America as young professionals are sitting back watching others live life to the fullest without making the steps to achieve a lifestyle that they truly want. Many of these individuals have amazing and inspirational aspirations but that’s all they have. They don’t have the results or the resume to support the fact that they are actually out there chasing these ambitious goals.

As a result of having unfulfilled goals - These people find themselves in a depressing and an often anxious state. From here, they begin to make excuses on why they are unable to achieve the goals and dreams that they truly want. A true hustler however, doesn’t make excuses. They show up. And by showing up I mean they make the effort and put in the hours to get closer to achieving the life of their dreams. As Abraham Lincoln said,

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.

The combination of aspirations and ambition is truly the fuel that drives a Hustler. A hustler has a vision (although often blurry) of what they want their legacy to look like when they leave this world.

Reposted from Quora

Apotheosis of George Washington - George Washington Ascends to...

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 08:30:40 -0700

Apotheosis of George Washington - George Washington Ascends to Heaven

nevver: How to Make Write

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 08:30:40 -0700

nevver:

How to Make Write

Photo

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:06:12 -0700

"Facebook is part-Frathouse, part-Commune. Everything is free and they just want to keep everyone in..."

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 08:30:17 -0700

“Facebook is part-Frathouse, part-Commune. Everything is free and they just want to keep everyone in their hacking”

- Guest Ath Speaker