Improving your Creativity

Recommendation: Colin Purrington’s “Designing Conference Posters”

2013-04-12

Shout-out and recommendation of another site dealing with scientific work. Great postings on lab notebooks, writing science papers, giving scientific talks, requesting letters of recommendation, and laptops in class.
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Mobile Technology Upgrades — Having an iPod touch on your wrist and looking forward to the future

2013-04-10

Smart watches seem to be coming, well there's already a way to wear an iPod nano on your wrist. You image where this might go.
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Staying on Track: Did I want to do this an hour ago?

2013-04-08

One way to prevent being distracted is to ask this simple question. Also: A few other ways to work more efficiently.
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To Scan or Not to Scan

2013-04-03

Digitization of books has lots of advantages, but there are books that pose the question: To scan or not to scan.
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Mistakes: Circles and Spirals

2013-04-01

Do you repeat your mistakes? Or do you improve why revisiting them? Read on.
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Mobile Technology Upgrades — (Mostly) Waterproof iPhone

2013-03-31

Smartphones are powerful, but also quite fragile. Until you give them the necessary protection. Then you can use them in a storm, while jogging.
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Workshop: Scientific Work — General Tips when Dealing with Literature

2013-03-24

There are tips that do not fit neatly into a category, yet can be impressively useful. Here are some regarding scientific work and literature -- the foundations on which we build our work, and our careers.
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Workshop: Scientific Work — Topic Notebooks

2013-03-24

An introduction to topic notebooks -- a very useful way of keeping your information available for future work (e.g., writing). Contains lots of tips. Highly, highly recommended.
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Avoid becoming bitter

2013-03-24

It can take years to become successful. In the meantime, avoid that poison. Also: Weight and dating.
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Expert Colored Glasses

2013-03-24

Expertise should allow you to make a contribution to the world, not make the world about your area of expertise. Some thoughts on this issue.
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This is a private blog showing my opinions. If you have an issue with what I write here, either don’t read it or talk to me directly. Don’t waste your time — or mine — dragging my employer into matters where they hold no authority.

The institution I work for, or rather the people officially representing it, have already distanced themselves from this blog. I find this unnecessary, as I’ve clearly stated in the «About this Blog» section that this is a personal blog.

Frankly, I have nothing but contempt for those who lack the backbone to address their concerns directly and instead resort to passive-aggressive tattling to others. Such behavior strikes me as not only cowardly, but also spineless, gutless, and wholly unprincipled. Moreover, these efforts are as pathetic as they are futile.

That said, I might listen if you present compelling arguments and evidence, as constructive feedback is always welcome. Who knows? We might even both gain something valuable from the interaction.

A comment for those seeking to use this site for personal gain: Given the increase in requests, let me be clear. I write on this blog because I want to. It’s my hobby, my playground. Sometimes people point me to interesting products/services and I write about them. But any request regarding ads or sponsored placements ends up the trash without a reply. And if you think something would be of interest, differentiate yourself from the spammers by referring to a posting — in an intelligent way. (I get enough auto-generated mails to identify them immediately.)

BTW, posts can get updated after I published them if I spot spelling errors (not a native speaker) or think a different wording might improve precision and clarity.

This blog is not focused on a single topic, or method. As long as it is relevant to improving creativity (or allowing it in the first place), it's fair game.
Some postings on this blog deal with freedom, as I think that we need freedom of thought, of speech, of association, etc. pp. to solve mankind's problems. Thus, some postings may seem a bit remote when it comes to organizing creativity. Freedom is, however, the bedrock of creativity.
The heterogeneity of the postings can make reading this blog a bit cumbersome, at least if you are only interested in one topic. You can either use the search function (above), or use the categories or the tags to narrow down the postings you see.

ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

How to generate, capture, and collect ideas to realize creative projects.

Recommendation: Colin Purrington’s “Designing Conference Posters”

Mobile Technology Upgrades — Having an iPod touch on your wrist and looking forward to the future

Staying on Track: Did I want to do this an hour ago?

To Scan or Not to Scan

Mistakes: Circles and Spirals

Mobile Technology Upgrades — (Mostly) Waterproof iPhone

Workshop: Scientific Work — General Tips when Dealing with Literature

Workshop: Scientific Work — Topic Notebooks

Avoid becoming bitter

Expert Colored Glasses