Poem: Waking up is hard to do June 23, 2008

You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.

So many live on and want nothing
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.

But what you love to see are faces
that do work and feel thirst.
You love most of all those who need you
as they need a crowbar or a hoe.
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret.

Rainer Maria Rilke. Das Studenbuch
Found in: Yoga and the Quest for Self by Stephen Cope

Damn Interesting April 15, 2008

About DamnInteresting.com

Welcome to our collection of damn interesting things. Damn Interesting was founded, designed, and developed by Alan Bellows in September of 2005. Though we occasionally post bits which could be described as “news,” our primary aim is to collect and dispense damn interesting facts and ideas, whether they appeared in the past, the present, or the (anticipated) future. New articles appear twice(ish) a week, though we’re aiming to increase that a bit.

You can even suggest a story, and there are links to books and DVD’s related to the stories.

Enjoy!

Daily Lit: Books by email April 15, 2008

Background

We created DailyLit because we spent hours each day on email but could not find the time to read a book. Now the books come to us by email. Problem solved.

The Idea

We got the idea for DailyLit after the New York Times serialized a few classic works in special supplements a few summers ago. We wound up reading books that we had always meant to simply by virtue of making them part of our daily routine of reading the newspaper. The only thing we do more consistenly than read the paper is read email. Bingo! We put together a first version and began reading “War of the Worlds” and “Pride and Prejudice“. We showed it to friends, added more books and features at their request, and presto, DailyLit was born.

How It Works

DailyLit sends books in installments via e-mail or RSS feed. We currently offer over 750 classics and contemporary books available entirely for free or on a Pay-per-Read basis (with sample installments available for free). Installments arrive in your Inbox according to the schedule you set (e.g. 7:00am everyday).

Contact them:

Daily Lit, LLC

434 Mamaroneck Ave, Suite 105

Mamaroneck, NY 10543

My favorite books April 14, 2008

This is placed in no specific order. Just because its #1, doesnt mean its my absolute favorite. (When you see #1, you’ll understand this prelude).

1. I hope they serve beer in hell - Tucker Max

2. Ishmael - Daniel Quinn

3. Something Borrowed, Something Blue, and Baby Proof  - Emily Giffin

4. Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble

5. The Giver (it is my favorite book of all time, and I read it when I was in the 7th grade) by Lois Lowry

6. 11 minutos, Veronika, El Alquimista - Paulo Cohelo

7. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

8. Love in Times of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

9. Why we Hate - Rush Dozier

10. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

11. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

12. In Lucia’s Eyes - Arthur Japin

 

more to come..

I am America, and so can you! April 14, 2008

Stephen Colbert is highly intelligent. This book (while it may offend some) should not be taken seriously. He is probably the most liberal person on the planet, but poses as a republican for his tv show. regardless of his political backround, the book talks about eery topic, including: family, religion, and obviously politics.
Read it. You WILL laugh.

From Ishmael April 14, 2008

For anyone that has read Ishmale, and wondered, what the hell does THAT mean?

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for “after this, therefore because of this”, is a logical fallacy (of the questionable cause variety) which assumes or asserts that if one event happens after another, then the first must be the cause of the second. It is often shortened to simply post hoc and is also sometimes referred to as false cause or coincidental correlation. It is subtly different from the fallacy cum hoc ergo propter hoc, in which the chronological ordering of a correlation is insignificant.

Post hoc is a particularly tempting error because temporal sequence appears to be integral to causality. The fallacy lies in coming to a conclusion based solely on the order of events, rather than taking into account other factors that might rule out the connection. Most familiarly, many superstitious beliefs and magical thinking arise from this fallacy.

Pattern

The form of the post hoc fallacy can be expressed as follows:

·         A occurred, then B occurred.

·         Therefore, A caused B.

Reading List (Must-reads) April 14, 2008

1. Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

2. War and Peace

3. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

4. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

5. The Stranger, Albert Camus

6. Don Quixote de la Mancha, Miguel de Servantes

7. Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer

8. Nostromo, Joseph Conrad

9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

10. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

11. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

12. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

13. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

14. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

15. Ulysses, James Joyce

16. The Trial, Franz Kafka

17. Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis

18. Moby Dick, Herman Melville

19. Beloved, Toni Morrison

20. 1984, George Orwell

21. Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Twelfth Night, Hamlet - Shakespeare

22. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

23. A room with a View - E.M. Forster

24. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

25. Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

26. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

27. The Turn of the Screw - Henry James

28. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

29. Les Miserable - Victor Hugo

30.  A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

31. In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s  - Truman Capote

32. Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller

33. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

 

Ill be adding more soon.. I pinky swear