Tag: link

Africa

[απόσπασμα]

 Τα στερεότυπα μάς ακολουθούν παντού. Όλοι έχουμε γνώμη και συχνά απόλυτη, χωρίς καν να γνωρίζουμε αυτό για το οποίο μιλάμε. Αλήθεια, σκεφτείτε το, πόσα στερεότυπα υπάρχουν για την Αφρική και πόσοι από όσους τα πιστεύουν έχουν επισκεφθεί ποτέ μια αφρικάνικη χώρα; Αν ρωτήσεις τον μέσο Έλληνα (όχι ότι οι Ευρωπαίοι δεν έχουν ανάλογες απόψεις, φυσικά) τη γνώμη του για τους Αφρικανούς θα έχει συγκεκριμένη άποψη, ακόμα και αν η μόνη του επαφή με τους ανθρώπους αυτούς είναι το CD ή η τσάντα που αγόρασε στο δρόμο. […]

Στερεότυπα (λινκ για το πλήρες άρθρο)

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Chimamanda Adichie: The Danger Of A Single Story

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Και για επιδόρπιο:

Why don’t you visit Africa? (Matador)

Review: You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself

You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself
You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself by David McRaney

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Logic. The paragon of human superiority. People have achieved so much because we’re plain smarter than everyone else on this planet. Right?

Maybe not so right. David McRaney, creator of the You Are Not So Smart blog which inspired this book, thinks that people are greatly overestimating their ability to rationally make heads or tails of the world. With a collection of almost 50 articles based on a rich bibliography of psychological, neurological and sociological studies, the author deconstructs, bit by bit, all of your sense of personal superiority, security and general feeling of “I’m simply smarter”. But it’s OK, the author re-assures us; deluding ourselves is part of what makes us human.

After reading the book, one might feel that he has gained some valuable knowledge that might just make him this much smarter. I felt that way too. But alas, this is also another delusion that was unfortunately not included in the book. Read all about the Illusion of Asymmetric Insight. It would have been the perfect conclusion.

Read this book and second guess your life. If you dare.

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(I have mentioned this blog in another post of mine: Link)

Downsides of Denmark

A Dane criticizes Denmark and the Danes. We gape at this apparent contradiction in terms and, when we’ve got over the shock, sit back and enjoy.

http://blogs.denmark.dk/peterandreas/

Just in time for this:

Daft Punk ~ Interstella 5555 ~ The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem

If you only know Daft Punk from their high-school-party hit One More Time, you just don’t know them enough. The French duo impressed me a lot once I dug a little deeper into their music. This video is their 2001 album “Discovery” set as the soundtrack to a one-of-a-kind anime film that tells the tale of an alien rock band being abducted to Earth (yes, the other way around from what we’re used to) and the dark secret behind the abduction… You might already be familiar with, indeed, One More Time, Aerodynamics, Harder Better Faster Stronger and others that, for me at least, became personal favourites. There’s no dialogue;the only narrative mediums are Daft Punk’s music and the animation, creating a followable story, a satisfying sync of audio/video that serves the purpose of the music video and an experience open for interpretation all at the same time. What else can I say? Enjoy!

As a sidenote, I might add that I’m sharing this with you despite having no delusion that most about no-one will watch a random video, just because I or indeed anyone said so, if it’s longer than just a few minutes. In this case, it’s 65 minutes. The medium is the message and ours has become the medium of the frighteningly short attentions spans…)

Game 2.0: In the land of Hyrule, there echoes a legend… 25 χρόνια Zelda

In the land of Hyrule, there echoes a legend.
A legend held dearly by the Royal Family that tells of a boy…

A boy who, after battling evil and saving Hyrule,
crept away from that land that had made him a legend…

Done with the battles he once waged across time, he embarked on a journey. A secret and personal journey…

A journey in search of a beloved and invaluable friend.

A friend with whom he parted ways when he finally fulfilled his heroic destiny and took his place among legends…

(Majora’s Mask Prologue, 2000)

(σ.σ: γέλαγα κάτω απ’τα μουστάκια μου με το “Add Link” του WordPress XD)


Review: What on Earth Happened?: The Complete Story of the Planet, Life and People from the Big Bang to the Present Day

What on Earth Happened?: The Complete Story of the Planet, Life and People from the Big Bang to the Present DayWhat on Earth Happened?: The Complete Story of the Planet, Life and People from the Big Bang to the Present Day by Christopher Lloyd

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There are some times when you read books that change your worldview, if even slightly (I mean, OK, realistically, what book will change your world view completely?). They make you think, stay with you for some time, making you want to talk with others around you about the fresh things you’ve just found out but for some reasons nobody seems to care about. What on Earth Happened has been one of those books for me.

It’s a beast. It took me slightly less than 3 months to read it all, but at times I remember reading a lot of it every day. WoEH is just incredible in i’s variety of subject material. The title truly says it all. Where else are you going to find the stories of giant dragonflies, the tectonic plates, why Europe’s only hope out of decadence was to go out exploring and colonising (ie destroying), prehistoric man, dinosaurs, ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, America (etc), the first species of marine wildlife, how ants, bees and termites are in some ways civilizations of their own, etc, etc, in one tightly packed, well-knit, intriguing package such as this?

WoEH, as it does claim to do, looks at the bigger picture. It delivers nicely: this is quite possibly the biggest picture of anything I’ve ever imagined, and it’s not cheesy at all, contrary to what I suspected at first… If the age of the universe can be shrunk into 24 hours, we humans have existed for the last 20 minutes of that and history is just a mere second thereof. Think about that for a second (pun intended).

You know what? It’s 6 o’ clock in the morning. I’ve slept very little and have to catch a ship. This book is genius, I love it, I can’t recommend it enough, I feel as if it’s going to be quite inluential to the way I see things. It’s bound to teach you someting new and fascinating, lots of stuff you always wanted to know but were too afraid/bored to ask. And of course other things you would have never imagined could be true. This review is a mess. I should come back to fix it sometime.

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30 Sleeps — Open Source Personal Development

I came across a very, very interesting blog a few days ago. I’ve been reading a lot of articles by Brad Bollenbach, owner and creator of 30 Sleeps, and they’ve made me think. The key idea (and inspiration for the title) is that we can make any change in our life, from the smallest to the biggest, within 30 days of putting our minds to it. 30 days and 30 nights, according to Brad, should be enough for us to know if what we’re trying to do is a good idea and it’s just enough to see some progress and some real results. He says it better than I ever would. Here are some of the articles I’ve read already. Beware: danger of addiction! Click on the links at your own risk. I’m putting them here to rid the weight off my Firefox, too. I’ve had them open in tens of different tabs for days! ^^P

Radical Honesty
Social Skydiving: The Art of Talking to Strangers
The Joy of Living Dangerously
How to Read a Book
Achieving the Impossible
Understanding Beliefs
Original Ideas
How to Not Care What Other People Think
Social Polarity
5 Energy Vampires and How to Get Rid of Them
Live Your Own Adventure
How to Just Be Yourself
Keeping It Simple
Embracing Rejection
Self-Respect
How to Meet Women Without Really Trying: An Example

Browse around and I’m sure you’ll find more of your interest!