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John Cleese on Creativity 21 February 2015

Posted by KentuckySerendipity in Education, Humor, Training.
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JohnCleese01John Cleese is well-known for his work in Monthy Python’s Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, and many movies. However, he is also an educator who has taught at Cornell and other universities of repute. Cleese co-founded Video Arts in order to produce videos which train while they entertain. Cleese has lectured at many events in many places, and some of those lectures are available on the web. One of Cleese’s popular topics is creativity. One can read one of his lectures on creativity at Genius.com. But even better, one can watch a video of a longer lecture on the same topic on YouTube. Cleese’s lecture is entertaining and funny, as one would expect from a Monty Python alum, and it is based on solid research as one would expect from a Cambridge-educated scholar. If you’re not familiar with Cleese’s somewhat serious side, I urge you to watch the video. You’ll learn something and laugh while doing it. It may even help you become more creative. If you have a need for training in your workplace, I urge you to look at items offered by Video Arts. I have used several of their training videos and they are quite good.

Authors Who Died in 2014 27 January 2015

Posted by KentuckySerendipity in Uncategorized.
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Several great and/or famous writers died in 2014. Among them were P.D. James, Nadine Gordimer, Tom Clancy, Elmore Leonard, Richard Matheson, and last, and probably the greatest, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. A more complete list can be found here. Buzzfeed has a nice tribute to some of these authors entitled 15 Powerful Quotes By Writers We Lost In 2014. You can read it by clicking on the title. The best tribute would be to read some of their works.

Paper Planners? Yes — Paper. 18 January 2015

Posted by KentuckySerendipity in Technology.
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In this day of Google Calendar, Outlook, and similar tools being available on phones as well as on computers, some people still use paper planners. And I’m one of them. I’m not a Luddite and I use Google Calendar along with Todoist to keep track of things. However, I find that carrying a paper planner helps in many ways. It’s easy to jot a note in the planner while I’m out and about. I use it to hold business cards, brochures, receipts, and other printed items which I collect during the day. But the biggest advantage is this: While my computer calendar and to-do list contain many, many entries, my paper planner has only the things which I write in — the things which I choose to pay attention to today or this week. The paper planner helps me to stay focused on what needs to be done now, and not be distracted by other tasks. (more…)