Cult of the Firefly

Media, information & network cultures - really, just a place to dump stuff I like

[cultofthefirefly]

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. MLK.

The day we fail to act...

[cultofthefirefly]

The volume of writing is enormous. So who are we to think anyone will ever care again. Or read more than ten consecutive words about any particular thing. "Do not affect a breezy manner" say Strunk and White. But why not? I'm willfully joining "the hoards of uninspired scribblers who would one day confuse spontaneity with genius". I wish I could teach that kind of breeziness, and that I was taught it.

[cultofthefirefly]

Words and gestures like walking into the wind. Hard fought. A struggle to place one after the other. It's not the words I worry about, or even their assemblage on the page, but what they might achieve. What's the wordly activity, action on the world that makes it worth the effort? Consequences in action. Pragmatics. The continuous tussle of words in the world.

[cultofthefirefly]

"Find a subject you care about". Kurt Vonnegut's first rule. The level of care has to be full and robust. It has to be felt, not feigned. My apprehension is usually all about whether anyone else will care as much, whether it's a thing worthy of care. That's when you have to dig in for the battle. There's a duty to make things matter. It should outshine the feeling of the need to please or to fit the mould. There is, though, a knack to finding and fitting the mood. Then the other "rules" will come in to play. "Sound like yourself". That one is most definitely my favourite.

[cultofthefirefly]

Writing is revising. Or, writing is rehearsing, sketching, firming, revising, rendering. Somewhere along the way an idea sniffs its way through. Or I'm finally sure that it is close enough to fit the brief. Indecision is the killer of good ideas. Or it's the protector against bad ones, banal or indifferent ones. Every page makes way for the one that comes after. But it's not the map or guide.

[cultofthefirefly]

Writing is like an itch that can't be scratched. You keep reaching for it but you're hamstrung by inadequacy. Time is always up, and mental energy always precarious. If I've learnt anything it's that every new piece will be just as difficult as the last. I'm straining to see the end of three journal articles. Each pose different challenges. Perhaps the hardest is the one that's important personally, because my colleague and friend and coauthor died a week and a half ago and it's left me still flattened, like an anvil dropped on my spirit.

[cedorsey]

© Photo Credit

[trasemc]

The most beautiful thing you will look today

3 years it took this girl to turn this piece of truck garbage into her home and it was beautiful. 😍😮 Have a good trip!

[stopscrollingplz]

Peer Mentors in beyondblue’s Mental Health Forums. A research report. Available at: http://apo.org.au/node/97236

[stopscrollingplz]

Peer Mentors in beyondblue’s Mental Health Forums. A research report. Available at: http://apo.org.au/node/97236

[tokyostreetphoto]

Getting Over It, Yanakawa 柳川

[tokyostreetphoto]

Nerve Center, Shinjuku 新宿

[tokyostreetphoto]

Underground, Yurakucho 有楽町

[prostheticknowledge]

Gloomy Sunday

Latest addition to Memo Akten’s ongoing ‘Learning to See’ project demonstrates a neural network powered realtime image translation framework, presenting possibilites for visual poetry:

A pre-trained deep neural network making predictions on live camera input, trying to make sense of what it sees, in context of what it’s seen before. It can see only what it already knows, just like us. 

More Here

[huyckd]

I’m hard at work on things that won’t come out until next year. But in the meantime, here’s one of my favorite monster GIFs that I made a couple years ago. Happy October!

[huyckd]

That time of year again

[jmatthew84-blog]

[cabinporn]

Hunting cabin in Sävast, north Sweden — one hour south of the arctic circle. Used during moose hunt and working in the woods. The winter dwelling of a brown bear is nearby. 

Submitted by Mats Berggren