sara ahmed
21, INTJ, middle eastern, muslim, majoring in network security. post-rock/instrumental/folk/indie/acoustic music lover, readingaholic, graphic novels and manga fanatic, arts and films appreciator, fake vintage photographer and an any-sort-of-knowledge seeker.
i sometimes like to listen to music (last.fm) and compile music (8tracks), i also appreciate good films (mubi) and read books (goodreads).
things i recommend (whaatnext)- recipes i collect (what the cookery)
- good covers appriciation (cover-duende)
- news/science/politics (backyard politics)
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Posts
koe no katachi - the shape of voice (oneshot)
Genre(s) : drama, slice of life, shounen
A one-shot about a girl with impaired hearing who transfers into a new middle school class after constant bullying from her classmates
a brilliant and simple approach to a huge issue (bullying).
read it online, here.
download it, here. (via mediafire)ps: i stopped adding download links a long time ago, but this felt necessary. please pass it on, let your younger siblings read them, let them show their friends and whatnot.
coffitivity - when it’s too quite or too noisy to work.
i don’t know about you, but this is bloody perfect and that is exactly the atmosphere when i’m most productive.
thank you, noura.
what ali wore - this is Ali. he walks past my work every morning wearing great clothes
cuteness overload of the day. thank you hayat.
Andrei Tarkovsky - Instant Light (1979-82)
From a series of 60 Polaroid photographs taken in Tarkovsky’s native Russia and in Italy, where he spent time in political exile.
“Tarkovsky often reflected on the way time flies and wanted to stop it… The melancholy of seeing things for the last time is the highly mysterious and poetic essence that these images leave with us. It is as though Andrei wanted to transmit his own enjoyment quickly to others. And they feel like a fond farewell.”
-Series of animal silhouettes on photos from above an airplane.
By Daniel Barretothe strangers project - anonymous journal entries from complete strangers collected from all around the world
i was going to post this after i was done with my midterms, but this can’t wait. this project is absolutely beautiful, raw, real and at some times, sad, heartbreaking and joyous. you never know with these strangers.
i love how anyone (including you, dear reader) can submit journal entries (handwritten or typed); some of them are even compiled into a book that you can buy or (download free digital version (limited time, so go download!)).
follow @StrangersProj on twitter for more information, thank yous and appreciation for this heartwarming project.
Xander Hook-Hultgren | On Tumblr
Xander is an freelance artist & illustrator currently based in London, UK. His practice tends to explore themes such as empathy and symbiotic relationships between mankind and nature, taking influences from both scientific and spiritual points of view. Inspired by poetry, mythology, symbolism, and other esoteric motifs — he aims to create imagery of an otherworldly atmosphere, imbued with a personalised visual language, in an attempt to express visually his thoughts and feelings that may be difficult to articulate through words alone.
Tim Head (London) cordially invites friend Stephen Smith (London) to taketurns
- Study Determines This Is the Most Relaxing Song Ever Looking for something to help you relax before bed that doesn’t involve popping a pill? You might want to load up your iPod with a song by Manchester band, Marconi Union. Sound therapists were able to rate ten of the most relaxing songs, with Marconi Union’s 8 minute trance-inducing tune, “Weightless”, coming out on top thanks to its continuous rhythm of 60 BPM, an ideal tempo for synchronization with the heart and brainwaves, making it an ideal audio accompaniment for a good night’s rest. Listen to it under the jump… Lyz Cooper, founder of the British Academy of Sound Therapy notes: “While listening, your heart rate gradually comes to match that beat. It is important that the song is eight minutes long because it takes about five minutes for this process, known as entrainment, to occur. The fall in heart rate also leads to a fall in blood pressure. The harmonic intervals - or gaps between notes - have been chosen to create a feeling of euphoria and comfort. And there is no repeating melody, which allows your brain to completely switch off because you are no longer trying to predict what is coming next. Instead, there are random chimes, which helps to induce a deeper sense of relaxation. The final element is the low, whooshing sounds and hums that are like buddhist chants. High tones stimulate but these low tones put you in a trance-like state.” The Top 10 Most Relaxing Tunes: 1. Marconi Union - Weightless 2. Airstream - Electra 3. DJ Shah - Mellomaniac (Chill Out Mix) 4. Enya - Watermark 5. Coldplay - Strawberry Swing 6. Barcelona - Please Don’t Go 7. All Saints - Pure Shores 8. Adele - Someone Like You (ookaaay)9. Mozart - Canzonetta Sull’aria 10. Cafe Del Mar - We Can Fly source
(No streaming audio available)1625397 plays - unfamiliar territory by @agentwhiskers electronic music fans, give this a listen! (also non-electronic music fans, give this a listen)
(No streaming audio available)1201 plays - digital salvation by @agentwhiskers utter brilliance!
(No streaming audio available)1987 plays - So here’s my version of the opening theme of HBO’s incredible “Game of Thrones” based on the ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ series of novels by half-Santa, full-genius George R.R. Martin. I composed it by ear (took a while to get some of the notes down) and added my own twist via synth solos. Hope you dig it!
(No streaming audio available)396 plays
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*replace pork with any other types of meat
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Penguin Great Ideas - Series 4 Book Cover Designs
Penguin’s Great Ideas series spans 100 slim paperback volumes, each containing a speech, story, essay or excerpt of text that “changed the world”.
These minimal, two-colour, typography-heavy designs are the work of David Pearson, with aditions from Alistair Hall, Joe McLaren, Catherine Dixon and Phil Baines. See the full high-res gallery.
More from Beautiful Book Covers on:
Facebook - Twitter - Pinterest - RSSA book cover or play poster for The Crucible by Arthur Miller :) I love the story. The message is always relevant.
Audrey Benjaminsen 2013
Radiohead – how to disappear completely (and never be found again)
Poster by Warsheh“Super Mega Evil Pig Bat from Hell Planet”
Seb Niark1 (France) via Curioos
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What Would Happen if Oxygen Were to Disappear for Five Seconds?
A few things:
- Everyone at the beach would get sunburns. Ozone is molecular oxygen and blocks the majority of UV light. Without it, we are toast.
- The daytime sky would get darker. With fewer particles in the atmosphere to scatter blue light, the sky would get a bit less blue and a bit more black.
- Every internal combustion engine would stall. This means that every airplane taking off from a runway would likely crash to the ground, while planes in flight could glide for some time.
- All pieces of untreated metal would instantly spot-weld to one another. This is one of the more interesting side effects. The reason metals don’t weld on contact is they are coated in a layer of oxidation. In vacuum conditions, metal welds without any intermediate liquid phase (Cold welding).
- Everyone’s inner ear would explode. As mentioned, we would lose about 21 percent of the air pressure in an instant, equivalent to being teleported to the top of the high Andes (elevation, about 2,000 meters).
- Every building made out of concrete would turn to dust. Oxygen is an important binder in concrete structures (really, the CO2 is), and without it, the compounds do not hold their rigidity.
- Every living cell would explode in a haze of hydrogen gas. Water is one third oxygen; without it, the hydrogen turns into gaseous state and expands in volume.
- The oceans would evaporate and bleed into space. As oxygen disappears from the oceans’ water, the hydrogen component becomes an unbound free gas. Hydrogen gas, being the lightest, will rise to the upper troposphere and slowly bleed into space through Atmospheric escape.
- Everything above ground would immediately go into free fall. As oxygen makes up about 45 percent of the Earth’s crust and mantle, there is suddenly a lot less “stuff” beneath your feet to hold everything up.
To sum, it wouldn’t be pretty.
There’s just a dead place inside of me now where I used to feel shock.
A Syrian child’s tears that will break your heart. Share this so the world can see how our innocent children are treated… may Allaah ﷻ be with them!
Literary Birthday - 12 March
Happy Birthday, Jack Kerouac, born 12 March 1922, died 21 October 1969
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
Kerouac’s Rules for Writing
Fellow writers were always asking Kerouac how he did what he did. So Kerouac set down 30 essentials in something he called Belief and Technique for Modern Prose. These tips may or may not make sense to you, but that’s Kerouac, man:
- Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
- Submissive to everything, open, listening
- Try never get drunk outside yr own house
- Be in love with yr life
- Something that you feel will find its own form
- Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
- Blow as deep as you want to blow
- Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
- The unspeakable visions of the individual
- No time for poetry but exactly what is
- Visionary tics shivering in the chest
- In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
- Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
- Like Proust be an old teahead of time
- Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
- The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
- Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
- Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
- Accept loss forever
- Believe in the holy contour of life
- Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
- Don’t think of words when you stop but to see picture better
- Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
- No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
- Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
- Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
- In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
- Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
- You’re a Genius all the time
- Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven
Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is a literary icon, and a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac died at 47 from internal bleeding due to long-standing abuse of alcohol. Since his death Kerouac’s literary prestige has grown. All of his books are in print today, among them: On the Road, The Dharma Bums, and Big Sur.
by Amanda Patterson for Writers Write
White smoke rises from Sistine Chapel
AP: White smoke is billowing from the from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, signaling that 115 cardinals in a papal conclave have elected a new pope.
The new pope is expected to appear on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica within an hour, after a church official announces “Habemus Papum” — “We have a pope” — and gives the name of the new pontiff in Latin.
Follow updates on Breaking News.Photo: White smoke emerges from the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Wednesday, March 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Literary Birthday - 11 March
Happy Birthday, Douglas Adams, born 11 March 1952, died 11 May 2001
Top 10 Douglas Adams Quotes
- In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
- Humans are not proud of their ancestors, and rarely invite them round to dinner.
- I tend not to read or watch Science Fiction, particularly not comedy Science Fiction. The point is that if it’s less good than what I do, there’s no point in reading it, if it’s better than what I do it makes me depressed. If it’s like something I’m intending to write I have to twist myself into knots trying to avoid it and if it’s like something I have written I feel ripped off. Simpler to read something else.
- I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.
- The Hitch Hiker’s Guide has not been an opera. It has however been a tapestry, if you count a woven bath towel as a tapestry.
- We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.
- It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
- I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer.
- Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
- I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.
Adams was an English writer who is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series which sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime. It also became a television series, was adapted into several stage plays, comics, a computer game, and a feature film.
by Amanda Patterson for Writers Write
A member of the Free Syrian Army at Bustan al-Qasr cemetery in Aleppo reacts to the death of a comrade.
[Credit: Hamid Khatib/Reuters]
Here is a Georgia State Trooper in riot gear at a KKK protest in a north Georgia city back in the 80s. The Trooper is black. Standing in front of him and touching his shield is a curious little boy dressed in a Klan hood and robe. I have stared at this picture and wondered what must have been going through that Trooper’s mind. Before the Trooper is an innocent child who is being taught to hate him because of the color of his skin. The child doesn’t understand what he is being taught, and at this point he doesn’t seem to care. Like any other child his curiosity takes hold and he wants to explore this new thing that this man is holding probably because he can see his reflection in it and that’s a neat thing and he wants to check it out. In this picture I see innocence mixed with hate, the irony of a black man protecting the right of white people to assemble in protest against him, temperance in the face of ignorance, and hope that racism can be broken because this young boy may remember that a black man smiled at him once and he didn’t seem so bad after all.
Creativity in Science
“They should have sent a poet,” whispers Ellie in the 1997 film Contact. She is a radio astronomer, and when she sets eyes on an alien galaxy for the first time, she has no words for its beauty. Despite being fiction, I think this interestingly highlights the need for pursuits in arts and sciences to be cross-disciplinary. Many students lose interest in science at an early age because it’s largely “taught to the test”, and so there is a decreased focus on creativity and imagination. Even practical experiments allow little room for creativity, as students are all expected to get the same results—and although this is important for teaching the scientific method, careers in science are not entirely like this: they require creativity and innovation. The infographic above shows the results of Creativity and Education: Why it Matters, a survey by research firm Edelman Berland (note: it is not specifically science-related). The research shows that that 85% of participants think creativity is crucial for problem solving in their career, yet 32% don’t feel comfortable thinking creatively. Yet, creativity is what keeps science moving forwards, because it fosters new connections and therefore gives rise to not only practical innovation, but also the creation of new knowledge. Scientists and engineers frequently encounter problems where they must use abstract, creative thinking, and they should be equipped to do this. From an early age, students should be encouraged to let their imaginations run wild, and also to use scientific reasoning to assess and test their ideas—and this approach of being open to multiple disciplines would be beneficial not only to science, but also foster innovation in other disciplines too. In Einstein’s words: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
Holocaust stories preserved through interactive 3D holograms
There are an estimated 500,000 Holocaust survivors alive today, but with an average age of 79, they comprise an ever-dwindling part of the world’s population. Their stories, however, will almost certainly live on, thanks in part to innovative efforts like New Dimensions in Testimony — an initiative that aims to record and preserve their harrowing histories through 3D holographic avatars.
