One of Those Brain Things

Striving for quantity if not quality

[pewdie-deactivated20220115]

“smile”, “be happy”,

It’s like everyone is obsessed with being happy, like it’s something holy - The end game of life…

Dont get me wrong, its a good feeling. I enjoy it too!

But there are other feelings and they’re not bad either.

Feel whatever you wanna feel. Its okay either way.

THIS SOUNDED VERY EMO, IM JUST SICK OF THESE DAMN PICTURES

[chaoticum]

I believe in free education, one that’s available to everyone; no matter their race, gender, age, wealth, etc… This masterpost was created for every knowledge hungry individual out there. I hope it will serve you well. Enjoy!

FREE ONLINE COURSES (here are listed websites that provide huge variety of courses)

Alison 

Coursera

FutureLearn

open2study

Khan Academy

edX

P2P U

Academic Earth

iversity

Stanford Online

MIT Open Courseware

Open Yale Courses

BBC Learning

OpenLearn

Carnegie Mellon University OLI

University of Reddit

Saylor

IDEAS, INSPIRATION & NEWS (websites which deliver educational content meant to entertain you and stimulate your brain)

TED

FORA

Big Think 

99u

BBC Future

Seriously Amazing

How Stuff Works

Discovery News

National Geographic

Science News

Popular Science

IFLScience

YouTube Edu

DIY & HOW-TO’S (Don’t know how to do that? Want to learn how to do it yourself? Here are some great websites.)

wikiHow

Wonder How To

instructables

eHow

Howcast

MAKE

Do it yourself

FREE TEXTBOOKS & E-BOOKS

OpenStax CNX

Open Textbooks

Bookboon

Textbook Revolution

E-books Directory

FullBooks

Books Should Be Free

Classic Reader

Read Print

Project Gutenberg

AudioBooks For Free

LibriVox

Poem Hunter

Bartleby

MIT Classics

Many Books

Open Textbooks BCcampus

Open Textbook Library

WikiBooks

SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES & JOURNALS

Directory of Open Access Journals

Scitable

PLOS

Wiley Open Access

Springer Open

Oxford Open

Elsevier Open Access

ArXiv

Open Access Library

LEARN:

1. LANGUAGES

Duolingo

BBC Languages

Learn A Language

101languages

Memrise

Livemocha

Foreign Services Institute

My Languages

Surface Languages

Lingualia

OmniGlot

OpenCulture’s Language links

2. COMPUTER SCIENCE & PROGRAMMING

Codecademy

Programmr

GA Dash

CodeHS

w3schools

Code Avengers

Codelearn

The Code Player

Code School

Code.org

Programming Motherf*?$%#

Bento

Bucky’s room

WiBit

Learn Code the Hard Way

Mozilla Developer Network

Microsoft Virtual Academy

3. YOGA & MEDITATION

Learning Yoga

Learn Meditation

Yome

Free Meditation

Online Meditation

Do Yoga With Me

Yoga Learning Center

4. PHOTOGRAPHY & FILMMAKING

Exposure Guide

The Bastards Book of Photography

Cambridge in Color

Best Photo Lessons

Photography Course

Production Now

nyvs

Learn About Film

Film School Online

5. DRAWING & PAINTING

Enliighten

Ctrl+Paint

ArtGraphica

Google Cultural Institute

Drawspace

DragoArt

WetCanvas

6. INSTRUMENTS & MUSIC THEORY

Music Theory

Teoria

Music Theory Videos

Furmanczyk Academy of Music

Dave Conservatoire

Petrucci Music Library

Justin Guitar

Guitar Lessons

Piano Lessons

Zebra Keys

Play Bass Now

7. OTHER UNCATEGORIZED SKILLS

Investopedia

The Chess Website

Chesscademy

Chess.com

Spreeder

ReadSpeeder

First Aid for Free

First Aid Web

Wolfram Demonstrations Project

Please feel free to add more learning focused websites. 

*There are a lot more learning websites out there, but I picked the ones that are, as far as I’m aware, completely free and in my opinion the best/ more useful.

[caramel-sugar-bby-deactivated20]

YAAAAAS JESUS

[ghastly-h-crackers-deactivated2]

Gonna learn me a webpage.

[newtypezaku]

[sirkowski]

And nothing of value was lost.

[ghastly-h-crackers-deactivated2]

Say hello to Cousin Oliver on the way down.

[depressioncomix]

196

[depressioncomix]

These feelings were so strong during my tenure at university I still have dreams long after, of time slipping away so quickly while I am immobilized by terror and panic. As I get older, I still have these feelings stirring in the background, and I’m sure they’ll only get stronger.

[oneofthosebrainthings]

I feel this way a lot recently, and I don't work at the moment and school doesn't start for another month. It seems like my depression gets stronger when I'm consciously trying to relax and enjoy the results of previous hard work.

[oneofthosebrainthings]

Jeff the Killer

(This was one of my free write assignments for English class. I was stuck with no ideas for what to write, so I picked something and described it, as my professor had told us to do if we were stuck. This wound up being my favorite assignment.)

In a darkened bedroom, he leans in from stage right. His monitor casts a faint glow on an open closet—much like yours—in the background, but it reflects harshly on his bleached skin. Framed by greasy black hair, his face is stiff as plaster, with some hints of shadow to suggest some kind of facial structure, but no nose. His mandible hangs out of frame, and a Glasgow grin stretches up to the cheekbone, baring rows of sharp yellowed teeth nestled in narrow gums, parted slightly in anticipation. He observes you with inhumanly round eyes, lidless, wreathed in ash. His pupils are black pinpricks focusing like lasers into his monitor, through the web, through your IP, through your browser history, and into your room. Your face is illuminated by your screen, creating a similar chiaroscuro portrait on his monitor, but while he's salivating, you're recoiling, and your soft underbelly is exposed to him. You can't tell if he wants to consume you, deliver your judgment and sentence, or rend you to pieces to see how you work. He explains nothing; he simply commands you to sleep.

[oneofthosebrainthings]

Starry Night

Far above the silhouetted skyline, a brilliant light shoots across a starless sky. Suddenly, the star bursts with a deafening snap, echoed by a discordant tone. The synthetic bell tolls for thee and heralds nothing but destruction. Somewhere in the night, a madman erupts with uncontrollable laughter. The heavens broadcast their warning beneath the horizon, which reads-...

Damn, I forgot.

One late night, I couldn't pull myself away from the computer. I was surfing the internet aimlessly, and after a long train of websites and thoughts I was reminded of my early phobia. I Googled Night Court and eventually found a YouTube link to the end credits, including the final logo. The production company was called Starry Night Productions. To the right of the video clip on my screen was a list of related videos with titles like “Top 10 Scary Logos from Your Childhood” and “The V of Doom.” I found dozens of videos with compilations and explanations of negligible three or four second animations set to music that somehow left an impact on tiny minds. Each of these had hundreds of comments telling stories similar to mine, many of them with some version of the phrase “I thought I was the only one!” Of these collections, nine out of ten logos seemed entirely benign to me, but some had a weird musical chord or odd silence that I could imagine my toddler self finding threatening.

Elsewhere on the Web, there is a Scary Logos Wiki, which categorizes them by scariness levels from “Low” to “NIGHTMARE,” and in 2010, a short documentary called The S From Hell debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. The S from Hell refers to the red and yellow Screen Gems animation that followed most TV shows kids watched in the 60s like The Monkees and The Flintstones. The filmmakers interview people who were afraid of the Screen Gems logo as kids and attempt, with good humor, to explore the reasons why anyone would be frightened.

I was fascinated with all of this, and started wondering what made these miniscule film segments so unnerving. All I can really think of is that when you're a little kid, everything you see is explained to you in detail. Your books, toys, and television shows are designed to teach you to make sense of the world around you. New objects and concepts are slowly introduced by a helpful puppet or cartoon character. Everything is literal so that your brain, which is learning how to interpret input, doesn't consider everything a threat, as if you were still an unevolved beast in the wild.

These logos are designed to grab your attention. Therefore, they are frequently louder than the rest of the program, and include bombastic noises like synthesizers, often playing two or more notes that either clash in a chaotic manner, or are played in a minor key, both signifying unease to the subconscious. The sounds are played over an abstract visual representation of a corporation that a child's brain isn't developed enough to analyze or understand. My theory? A television logo is a child's first introduction to the surreal. Does that mean that it's unintentional art? I don't know. It's late. I'm going to bed now.

[oneofthosebrainthings]

Judgement (a short story)

Sister Agatha had the power to stop time.

“Everybody freeze!” she said, her singsong voice rising over the din. The children in the classroom obliged instantly, since this tactic was just another game to them. In kindergarten, there is little distinction between fun and learning, and the children greeted both with enthusiasm. Most of the time, anyway.

Sister Agatha slowly counted out loud. Once she reached three, the students could move again, and they turned to face her.

Sister Agatha took her place in the large wooden rocking chair in her small theatre in the round, and waited for the class to be seated in their tiny plastic chairs. They knew the morning ritual by heart now, and were able to go right into the “Good Morning” song without further instruction, followed by the Our Father and the Pledge of Allegiance.

As Sister Agatha reached behind her to find the large illustrated children's Bible, she asked, “How many of you remember Lazarus from last week's story?” Some raised their hands, some didn't. “Today, I have another story about another man named Lazarus.”

“They have the same name?” blurted Andrew Marcus without raising his hand.

“Andrew, what's rule #2?” chided Sister Agatha.

The children responded slowly in unison, “Always raise your hand before you speak!”

Undaunted, Andrew raised his hand and asked his question again.

This time Sister answered, “Yes. Sometimes people have the same name, just like in this classroom, we have Ryan McFarland and Ryan Rinaldi. This Lazarus is in a Bible story called The Rich Man and Lazarus.”

Lidia Gaidis' eyes lit up as she let out an enormous gasp. Her hand shot up, and her tiny body trembled in anticipation. Lidia bit her lip in a cartoonishly exaggerated manner to keep from talking out of turn. Most of Lidia's reactions were overstated, as if she learned how to emote from children from toy commercials and rehearsed her expressions and body language in the mirror daily. Her dramatic flair was likely inherited from her mother, who was the music director for the junior high plays.

Sister Agatha acknowledged Lidia, who exclaimed, “Sister, I know this story! I saw a play all about it that my mom did the music for!”

“That's right, Lydia,” replied Sister Agatha, “That was Godspell. I saw it, too. Do you remember how that scene went?”

Lidia nodded enthusiastically.

“Why don't you show us, then?”

Taking a deep breath, Lidia stood up, raised her chin, and walked slowly and with great authority towards the center of the circle. She put her hands behind her back, and surveyed her peers.

“Eileen,” she said, pointing towards Eileen Martin, her most frequent playmate, “You can be Lazarus.” Eileen walked over to Lidia, who guided her to stand to the right.

Lidia pivoted sharply, her dark bouncy curls whipping around her head, and indicated a spot on the floor to her left. “Andrew Marcus, stand here,” she commanded. “You're the rich man.”

A chorus of “ooh!”s erupted from the boys. To them, Andrew was a comic genius, and they couldn't wait to see what he would do in the spotlight. Andrew smirked and took his place.

“Once upon a time,” Lidia announced grandly, “there was a rich man in fancy clothes and a big shiny house. One day, a poor man named Lazarus came. He didn't have anything to eat because he was too poor.” She turned to Eileen. “Get down on your knees—like this—and put your hands on your tummy. Now ask him for food. Go ahead!”

Timidly, Eileen croaked, “Um... Can I have some food...?”

“No way, Jose!” Andrew responded, mugging for his giggling friends.

Lidia ignored the interruption. “Then they all died. Eileen, lie down. You're dead. Andrew...”

Andrew pretended to choke, and collapsed on the floor. Sister Agatha stifled a chuckle.

“Lazarus was a good man, so he went to Heaven and met Abraham,” Lidia turned to Sister Agnes, “you're Abraham, by the way.”

Eileen crawled over to Sister Agnes and sat to her right. Sister Agnes welcomed her with a gentle pat on the back. Lidia summoned Ryan McFarland and Tony Lawlor, the two tallest boys in class, and had them stand next to Andrew.

“But the rich man was so greedy that he went to Hell, where demons tortured him all the time. Ryan, grab his legs. Tony, grab his arms. Now pull!” Andrew's eyes grew wide in terror as his friends began to stretch him on an invisible rack.

“No no no!” interjected Sister Agatha, “Don't pull, you'll hurt him!”

“Okay, then,” said Lidia, “just hold him down.”

Andrew started to struggle and protest. “Sister, make her—“

“The rich man saw Lazarus in Heaven with Abraham,” Lidia continued, “and when he asked why he was in Hell, Abraham said that people who get bad things get good things in Heaven, but people who get good things go to Hell because they don't share.”

Andrew's face contorted with anguish and he sobbed, “I don't want to go to Hell.”

Lidia whipped around again and approached Andrew, towering over his prone form, “Well, that's what you get for pulling people's hair, Andrew Mason!”

[wholebagel]

i keep thinking about this post

[handful-of-teeth-deactivated202]

truly motivational

[oneofthosebrainthings]

That would fix absolutely everything, I'm sure of it!

[oneofthosebrainthings]

Childrens Hospital

They make it look like heaven

All bright lights and pastels

Even the lights in the elevators cycle through the visible spectrum

We congregate in the hallways and cafeterias

Stress eating and trying to make small talk

Wearing badges signifying us as the protectors and caretakers

of someone who shouldn't be here

Our authority is stripped away

We are unprepared and powerless

and all we can do is wait and pretend everything is normal

[oneofthosebrainthings]

My past as "content creator" on the internet (stream of consciousness)

I started drawing when I was 13, just before summer vacation. My parents had gotten me several paperback books with instructions on how to draw Disney characters. This was the first time I had seen complex figure drawings broken down into simpler geometric shapes. I think my first attempted drawing was of Ariel. I remember I drew the waist too small, but I did get feedback from my 7th grade male classmate, who proclaimed her "hot."

During summer vacation, I would sit in my pajamas, watching talk shows (Sally Jessy Raphael was my favorite at the time), and I would draw my female friends and me as Anime-style magical girls. My best friend--who was male--requested that I draw one for him as well. I didn't draw him in drag, though that would have been funny.

I had attended the same school with the same friends from kindergarten through seventh grade, and that fall I would be attending boarding school over an hour away. I wanted to do something to share the drawings with my friends as a special memento before I left. A few days before I was to leave, I quickly wrote up an origin story for these characters as a team, printed it out, and gave it to them in envelopes.

To combat homesickness, I continued drawing and writing for these characters. Most of my friends back home didn't seem to be too interested, so I thought I would make a website. (To protect their privacy, I wrote pseudonyms for their characters.)  I found this cheesy free web-hosting service that I don't think is around anymore. (They wouldn't even allow you to upload or post pictures. Text boxes were allowed, but HTML was processed as text and not code.) As I wrote and drew more, I moved my site to Tripod, then eventually to Homestead. In order to improve the layout, I studied some HTML.

I became obsessed with this project. Every weekend, I'd stay up until 3 or 4 AM in the common room, drawing. Weeknights were spent writing, and weekends during the day were for website design. This project brought me many moments of happiness and triumph. I finally made a breakthrough in drawing in Anime style, the same day I learned I got a C+ on my Drawing Class final. My site counter reached 1000 unique visitors, which felt like a huge deal in the era of Geocities. I got instant feedback through emails and a guestbook. Sometimes, people sent fanart or fanfiction!

The website grew for about three years, and my relationship with this story outlasted my friendships with most of the people the characters were based on. High school was tough for me, though, and one day I caught writer's block, and never recovered.

The site is pretty much gone now. My stories and pictures are trapped on an old hard drive running Windows 98 somewhere in my parents' house. In hindsight, the story was pretty bad, and obvious wish-fulfillment at that, but that's to be expected of a 13-year-old. I still remember how happy I was working on it, though.

I've been trying to recapture that feeling lately, but I've not been successful. Did video games ruin my imagination, or did adulthood do that? Do I need to experience soul-crushing boredom or homesickness to be able to express myself again? Am I just not capable of writing or drawing better quality work?

Sorry to whine. I don't really have a point to this entry. This is just what's been on my mind today.

[oneofthosebrainthings]

(Picture from What You Wear Can Change Your Life by Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine)

I picked up some fashion-advice books from the library. I wish I hadn’t. Apparently, I was torn from the “saddlebags” of Zeus, since I consist of 100% flaws. I’m not even sure I can legally call myself human. The color that looks good on me does not exist. (Perhaps octarine, Pratchett fans?) It is recommended that I wear a full suit of spandex armor under everything all the time.

This is not me fishing for compliments or pity, oh no! Turns out none of you are allowed to wear anything either, since you need to hide your flaws, and promote your assets, but your assets are flaws too, so your best course of action is to pack your bags with nothing and book a spot at the nearest nudist camp. (I think there’s one in Ipswich, so that’s convenient.) Consider this a Public Service Announcement.

I did like the puzzle, though, in which you have to find the cellulite. Can you? Reminds me of Where’s Waldo?

[oneofthosebrainthings]

Mission Statement

During Winter/Spring of 2013, I had to take an English course. I hadn't written much of anything in over ten years, and I had a heavy courseload in math and tech, so I was apprehensive about this class.

The professor stressed quantity over quality and content over style. In high school, I attended private strict schools that were very rigid in correcting papers for structure. They always had font, length, spacing, and paragraph restrictions. I'm not saying that any of those are unnecessary when teaching writing, but this professor's approach took a lot of pressure off me, so I could focus more on other courses.

We had two assignments due each week, one analysis of a short story we had been assigned the previous week, and one free-form free subject writing assignment. It could be a review or analysis of something we read, or a poem, or short story. If we were stuck, he suggested that we either write a stream-of-consciousness, or pick an object and describe it.

The rule was that if we volunteered to read our free-subject assignment aloud, then we would get an automatic A. I read every single one aloud, good or bad, whether I liked it or not, because my GPA needed all the help it could get. Knowing I was doing this for a grade kept my severe criticism at bay. I was surprised to find that I enjoyed writing and sharing. Of the free-form projects I wrote, I wound up liking about half of them. My opinion of my own work decays sharply with time...

I'm giving that a try on a larger scale with this Tumblr. I do not have a theme yet. I don't know yet what, if any, schedule I will keep when posting. I may edit or delete past posts, maybe not. I go back to school full-time this fall, so I hope this can serve as a bit of escape or stress relief.

[oneofthosebrainthings]

Creative motivation

A troubling thought occurred to me recently. I've been frustrated for a long time trying to find motivation to engage in creative pursuits. Do I have the need to express myself? Do I need validation and feedback or can I feel satisfied by completing something and putting it in a drawer somewhere never to see the light of day? Is there some noble purpose behind self-expression other than wanting attention? While enjoying a YouTube video of one of my favorite artists, I thought, "I wish people liked me as much as I like this person." That statement feels more true to me than any other idea I've had so far. Oh, that's not good.

[oneofthosebrainthings]

I saw a movie the other day that has not yet been released to the general public, so there are no reviews available online yet. I feel uneasy to have an opinion of a film and not be able to check the internet to see if my opinion is correct.

[oneofthosebrainthings]

First Post Jitters

I started a blog!

Two days ago, I spent about two hours trying to come up with a name that hadn't already been used.

Yesterday, I spent an afternoon toying with layouts and options, (even though I wound up using the default.)

Today, I spent an evening sifting through a couple thousand old photos I've taken so I can choose a header and avatar that didn't belong to anyone else.

Then I booted up my photo editing program that I haven't used in years to add artsy effects to my header. I'm embarrassed to admit how long I spent doing that.

I forgot what I was going to write about.