Tag: creativity

Reading List - Creative muse, Thinking machines, Walter Cronkite, Street Photography, Facebook, macOS Spotlight, and the Camera Market

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The muse:

Just be sure of this one thing: that you love the muse and what you create together more than the ever-changing tools you happen to use to create. The tools matter, they are necessary, but they aren’t where we put our hearts. That beautiful, lofty, messy place is for the muse, and the dance, and the art alone.David DuChemin

Thinking machines:

Machine learning, AI in all forms, and robots are making it increasingly possible to fire humans and dramatically improve productivity and profits. That means more unemployed humans, and there aren’t many businesses who will avoid upgrading because of what might happen to the greater economy in 20 years as a result.Daniel Miessler

Walter Cronkite:

Walter Cronkite was a lot like the BBC. It was private, but between him and Dan Rather and all those types, there were very few sources of news. It was almost state-provided, like the British do it.

The popular narrative is that we have the same thing we used to have, but now we have a worse version of it. Basically the advertisers got their hands on it, and now it’s all newstainment, or whatever the hybridization is.

But I was just thinking that maybe something else happened entirely.

What if we went from zero choice to lots of choice?

One could argue that news isn’t actually worse today, but rather that there’s so many options and that many of them are worse.Daniel Miessler

Street photography tips:

Street Photography can be a very complex subject and this is the reason for a lot of photography mistakes you can make. The articles on this page are in place to help you to get the pictures you always wanted. Thinking about photography more than actually taking pictures doesn’t make you a better Photographer, it makes you a better Theorist. The best advice is to go on the street to shoot and put as much time into practicing than possible. Internalize the rules of composition one step at a time and don’t rush the theory too fast.Sebastian

On the societal cost of Facebook:

Perhaps more people would think twice if the label for Facebook read:

Everything you say and do on Facebook will be used against you by advertisers for targeting that’s most likely to catch you at your most vulnerable, needy moment. Your consumption of the echo chamber timeline will lead to a narrower field of vision of the world. We may try to tinker with your mental well-being at any time, if we determine that a depressed state increases engagement on the A/B by any margin.The price of monetizing schemes

This tip solved a problem I was having with slow connections over SFTP when the remove file system is mounted as a system volume.

To cut a long story short, the Mac mini was causing the problem and specifically the ordinarily problem-free Spotlight indexing routine. I’m still not entirely sure what the issue was but turning off network drive indexing on the Mac mini fixed the issue. Did you know that Macs automatically index network shares? No? Well, now you do.Keir Thomas' Mac KungFu

I don't normally quote the Verge, but this statement was spot on.

Digital imaging technology has matured, and that’s led to a ton of very good digital cameras. But maturity brings with it a sort of developmental stagnation, which is exacerbated by the fact that there are only really two companies making camera sensors nowadays: Sony and Canon. Nikon and Fujifilm both use Sony sensors, and both rely on advancements from Sony’s engineers to drive their cameras’ performance forward. That’s probably why Fujifilm felt compelled to go all the way to a medium-format sensor for its new flagship — in order to break free of that constraint.Camera companies are struggling with the PC industry's biggest problem

Working Both Creatively And Productively

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I'm probably not taking a huge risk in thinking you'd like to be more productive and more creative. Unfortunately the two seem to be at odds. What you do to increase productivity makes it harder to be creative and the things you do to be more creative often make you less productive. Working Both Creatively And Productively

Tracking hours, invoicing, paying business bills and quarterly taxes -- these tasks keep me productive but allow little time for continuing to learn and develop my craft. For the next three months, however, I'll have to find a way to do both. I am in training for the offensive security certified professional certification.

Space To Create

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Paul Jarvis in collaboration with Medium provided this writing prompt along with some free sample images from Death to Stock.

How do you give yourself the space necessary to create?

I often don't. I admit I am one of those people who fills every empty moment doing something. I usually fill those "empty" moments while waiting in line reading my email or RSS stream. I know that I want to stop doing this. I know that when I go out for a walk that I get to "see" and be. Sometimes in ways that often bring great inspiration. My thoughts have space to "be". I want more of these moments. I want to stop filling the gaps with someone else's works.

When was the last time inspiration struck you? What did you do to best facilitate it striking? What did you do to make space to write this writing prompt?

Last night in the shower inspiration struck me. Actually, inspiration strikes me almost every night in the shower. It's one of the few moments in the day when I can't use my iPhone. The warmth and sound of the rushing waters clears my head of less important stuff. I can day dream. I can see where I couldn't see before.

I want to make time for longer showers. Not literally. Figuratively. I need time + no-distraction. For example, I didn't take a shower before writing this. I just started. Perhaps that's all it take. Starting. Oh, and headphones. With some good trance music.