Not only a damn fine blog, but also an awesome book. If you don’t yet own a copy of Mind Hacks, make today the day you buy one. Seriously, it’s nearly pay-day. Make sure you own this book, and read it at least twice. Then, keep it to hand at all times.
Out of all the pretty girls for whom I’ve bought a copy of this book, exactly 100% have subsequently slept with me. And I’m not even joking.
You’ll laugh! You’ll cry! You’ll pull!
I can’t remember the last time I gave such a glowing recommendation. I can’t remember the time I glowed about anything at all. I noticed I’ve been pushing this book to people since it was published, but never so on t’interweb. Consider it pushed. Buy the sodding book already.
I’ve been using FreeMind for about two years. Here’s a good post from a while back, which lays out the main points of why it’s so great.
Effective brainstorming is the art of recording disjointed data (human thoughts) in such a way that they may then be grouped, sorted and prioritised. FreeMind’s tree-like structure encourages the user to start with the big stuff and whittle down to the details – but by the time you’re adding details, they’re falling into groups: making them much easier to manage.
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I’m not organised enough to collect the phone numbers of beautiful women. If I’m honest, I’m not even organised enough to collect anyone’s phone numbers, or meet women of any description.
I do, however, have a little black book. Inside, its 192 plain pages are filling up with various scruffy notes that I have made in black fountain pen. Many of the pages have lists, bearably readable by anyone other than the author, of topics for posts to be made here.
My friends and colleagues like stealing the book. Maybe they want to know what’s going on in my head. Many say what they find looks like the scrawlings of a madman.
All the same, I have a little black book full of notes and, now I’ve done this, I feel I can begin on some of those.
I have considerable admiration for anyone who’s ever had that discussion with their parents. If the parents have managed to overcome shock and respond with the usual parental love and support, I admire them too. I like to think that, by the time my own terribly liberal generation is old enough to have children of the “finding one’s sexuality” age, we’ll be so chilled-out, unfazed and approachable about it that it won’t even register as a milestone.
Last year, I found myself in a situation which I believe is as close to this as you can get if, like me, you’re straight. It took place, as convention dictates, around the kitchen table.
It wasn’t premeditated: I had not intended for it to happen, nor staged the moment, nor even planned what I was saying. For the life of me I can’t even remember exactly what I said. I remember realising that I’d just said it, and that I was already part of the brief silence that followed.
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