Improving your Creativity

The Learning Game

2009-12-07

A short reflection on why -- and for what -- you should learn. In school and beyond.
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Creativity: Beyond Nuclear Steam Engines

2009-10-13

A short reflection arguing that most creative works are not as new as they could be (essentially, a nuclear power plant is just a steam engine with more pep).
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Computers as Places of Power

2009-10-13

A short reflection on the uses of mastering one of the most powerful tools available: Your computer and some tips to do it.
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Create your own Creative Help-Sheets

2009-09-22

Creating your own help sheets is a good way to learn about a new topic and to remember crucial things in the 'heat of the moment'.
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Wiki Landmines with PHP and the DATE function

2009-09-11

Using PHP in a Wiki (e.g., DokuWiki) to display information only on certain dates, e.g., links to review pages only on weekends.
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Ferret (Frame and JavaScript Enhanced Wiki)

2009-09-03

Using Frames and JavaScript can enhance a Wiki tremendously -- prior to these modifications, creating pages was excruciatingly slow, now it is extremely fast and easy-to-do.
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DokuWiki Adjustments

2009-09-03

Some things you can do to make your Wiki (here: DokuWiki, but works with almost any other Wiki) more appealing, easier, quicker and fun-to-use (including ImageMaps, Date-dependent Links, Link-to-edit, Links to specific functions, Header Highlighting, etc.).
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Circus Ponies Notebook for Academic Writing (e.g., Thesis Writing)

2009-09-01

Describing my academic (reading) work flow and using Circus Ponies Notebook to write articles with the material I have read. Impressive what you can do with cell tagging in an outliner.
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Mini-Projects-List

2009-08-22

Keeping track of projects by creating a small list of creative activities. Example for DokuWiki, but works everywhere else as well.
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Reading light for Writing

2009-07-12

Using a book-reading light to have a small bed light for writing.
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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.