Substrate

Some thoughts from Refactor Camp this year.

fans responded to most viscerally, perhaps, was the fact that it’s a book about becoming, both mentally and physically—about what it takes to shape a self, in all its completeness and disarray.

For reasons I’m sure my therapist could tell you, I wanted to be the kind of person worth celebrating, and didn’t realize that the only thing standing in the way was my own fear of taking up that space for myself.

Subscribe to our channel: http://po.st/ytab Stream us on Spotify: http://po.st/abspotify Live dates: http://po.st/ablive Tracklist: (1:50) 01. Cliff Martinez - Is That What Everybody Wants (Superb Records) (3:54) 02. Parker & Hanson - Arabesque (Anjunabeats) (10:01) 03. Cosmic Gate & Andrew Bayer - Nothing Ever Lasts (Black Hole) (15:41) 04. Mat Zo - Loop (White) (23:10) 05. Mat Zo - Superman (Anjunabeats) (29:05) 06. Andrew Bayer - Counting The Points [Club Mix] (Anjunabeats) (36:37) 07. Matt Lange - Bad Year Blimp (Anjunadeep) (42:47) 08. Edu & Cramp - Human Turbines (Anjunabeats) (49:10) 09. Massive Attack - Teardrop [Bart Claessen & Tom Fall Bootleg, Above & Beyond Tweak] (White) (55:32) 10. Maor Levi & Raul Siberdi - Infatuation (Anjunabeats) (1:02:36) 11. Above & Beyond - Formula Rossa (Anjunabeats) (1:09:01) 12. Above & Beyond - Thing Called Love feat. Richard Bedford [2011 Club Mix] (Anjunabeats) (1:15:27) 13. Arty - Around The World (Anjunabeats) (1:22:09) 14. CREEP - Days feat. Romy Madley Croft [Super8 & Tab Remix] (Young Turks) (1:27:42) 15. Super8 & Tab feat. Jan Burton - Slow To Learn [Maor Levi Club Mix] (Anjunabeats) (1:33:36) 16. Above & Beyond - You Got To Go feat. Zoë Johnston [Kyau & Albert Remix] (Anjunabeats) (1:38:54) 17. Arty & Mat Zo - Rebound (Anjunabeats) (1:44:55) 18. Above & Beyond - Sun & Moon feat. Richard Bedford [Bart Claessen's Lost Dub] (Anjunabeats) (1:49:43) 19. Above & Beyond - Prelude (Anjunabeats) (1:54:46) 20. Andrew Bayer - From The Earth [Album Mix] (Anjunabeats) Live Dates: http://po.st/ablive Website: http://po.st/wbab Facebook: http://po.st/fbab Twitter: http://po.st/twab Soundcloud: http://po.st/absc Instagram: http://po.st/abins iTunes: http://po.st/abitunes Google+: http://po.st/abgopl

I never asked her what she gave up to drive me, or how her day was before this chore.

Just as I’m imagining their environment, their clothes, their gestures, they’re imagining me. We’re making a cocoon where only the two of us live.

There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy

So, we threw out a bunch of words and a phrase and a color, and all of us sat down to write. I think the color that day was gray or we could choose a color, I don’t remember. And I ended up writing “Ode to Grey.” So, it was written with her, side-by-side. ​ Writing is really just a matter of allowing them to believe they have something important to report to the world. Whether it’s looking out their window and telling us what they see, or looking inside themselves and telling us what they feel. What’s best, of course, is telling us what they feel about what they see.

“Just” makes me feel like an idiot. “Just” presumes I come from a specific background, studied certain courses in university, am fluent in certain technologies, and have read all the right books, articles, and resources. “Just” is a dangerous word.

Writing for another publication you get a little circular avatar at the beginning of the post and a brief bio at the end of the post, and that’s about it.

With these two new models for schools in place (decision schools + trade schools), we'd also have the benefit of easy mobility later in life. Want to make a change and not sure what comes next? Go to Decision School, decide on a new path, then go to another trade school that can get you into that field.

the night sky into stars, the stars into patterns I make up

While you can easily predict the concerns of making any leap, there is no way to predict the numerous rewards that await you on the other side.

I’d been caught off-guard by the publicity around How to Do Nothing. I was soon buried under the pile of obligations and opinions that followed. At times, it felt like I no longer knew what my book was about, or what it was that I actually thought. I felt desperate for some kind of clarity. And by placing the will so high above circumstance, it projects an untruthful image of equal opportunity in which the unfortunate should have just tried harder. When I examine my identity, I do see an inalienable spirit grasping for infinity. But in the very same place, I also see an intersection of historical and cultural vectors, held up by a web of countless reliances.

The first virtual Frieze New York offers some very real benefits—like being able to browse, and read the backstory of, the pieces we might have missed.

It can be so uncomfortable to be working in an interdisciplinary way that’s hard to explain to other people and to yourself, and isn’t even really a thing yet. I wish there was a way to tell someone in that position, or me when I was in that position, “No, you’re actually on the right path, it just doesn’t feel like a path yet. Ironically, that’s the evidence that you’re doing something interesting.” ​ It reminds me of the phrase in your book, where instead of saying “no” to something, you instead say, “I would prefer not to.” ​ I can just read and absorb, and not have a 100% airtight analysis right now. You know? Or maybe I don’t need to respond right now, I can just take it in. ​ But I would also say, it doesn’t matter if you know what kind of bird you’re seeing. For the purposes that we’re talking about, I think it’s really more about seeing something else that’s alive, and is living its life.

Poetry, perhaps more than any other literary art, is uniquely suited for giving voice to the deepest parts of ourselves. There is no reason that everyone shouldn’t have access to that experience.

According to this strategy, the best time to drink coffee is when you are already very alert. The reinforcement strategy has another element to it. When adenosine peaks, the best response is not to fight it, but “go with the flow” and (shock, gasp) sleep. With complete abstinence, it takes five days to reach adenosine normality;

Danny Hillis once defined technology as “everything that doesn’t work yet,” prompting the following corollary from Kevin Kelly: “Successful inventions disappear from our awareness.

But now I am crafting a simple webpage that only one other person will see. Not by accident, but by design.

I don’t see this changing any time soon, so I believe the solution will have to be technical.

An idea for iOS and Android

fy_iceworld is one of the most divisive and popular custom maps ever made for Counter-Strike. But who made it? We dove into datamining and the old web to find o

Maybe fy_iceworld shows how games are fragile temporary things. We can’t even agree what the game is about. There’s more than one Counter-Strike because each of us is playing our own idea of it. Everytime we get together on a server, every player is temporarily agreeing to let their mind intersect with every other mind, and together, we construct this momentary shared instance of Counter-Strike as our assumptions and logic clash.

Just share what’s of importance to you. And don’t look at pageviews. Don’t seek claps. Don’t chase reposts. Don’t covet trackbacks. Seek the unique pleasure of having shared something you feel is worth sharing. And the conversations that sort of writing (that sort of blogging) encourages. And yes, it can take time. Good things generally do.