MetaFilter posts tagged with life

So Open it Hurts.

chunking express — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:06:22 -0800

So Open it Hurts. Web 2.0 visionaries Tara Hunt and Chris Messina blogged and twittered about their romance to all of geekdom as if it were one of their utopian open-source projects. Sharing their breakup has been a lot harder. Tara Hunt writes about the article.

Randy Pausch dies at 47

brassafrax — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:48:19 -0800

Randy Pausch, who became famous for his "last lecture" after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, has died at 47. (previously) The last lecture video went viral in late 2007. Pausch became a minor celebrity and made a commencement address at Carnegie Mellon which also gained media attention. Homepage (currently being overwhelmed) and Wikipedia.

Lateral gene transfer and the history of life

homunculus — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:26:12 -0800

Festooning The Tree Of Life. Carl Zimmer describes new research on lateral gene transfer which makes the Tree of Life look more like a Gordian Knot.

How Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things

Effigy2000 — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:05:54 -0800

MeFite scrumtralescent thought it would be fun to interview people who dared to take a chance and do something cool or exciting, like leaving their jobs to travel for a year, picking up an unusual hobby or starting their own business, and then share these interviews via a website for all to enjoy. So she did, and the result was 'The Life Less Traveled: How Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things…And How You Can, Too!' [via mefi projects]

What should I do with my life?

vytae — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:45:03 -0800

"If I make enough money now, I can quit and do what I really love later." "If I just think hard enough, I'll finally figure out what I want to do with my life." "I know people in this career path lose their souls, but I'll be different." "What if I try a new career, and it turns out I don't like it?" Po Bronson tackles some of the thoughts that keep people from pursuing a career they would really love. The article (one-page version) is based on his New York Times bestseller, What Should I Do With My Life? The writing is several years old, but the question seems to spring eternal.

No glove boning for me.

divabat — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 05:30:29 -0800

NYT asks: What's your recipe deal breaker? Deep frying? Requiring a helper? Standing overnight? Lifehacker readers chime in with the recipes that stop them cold.

Keeping it simple, voluntarily

Toekneesan — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:02:56 -0800

"We want to be in clean country with like-minded people with access to clean food. . . . The question is, Do I have Internet access in the woods?" The New York Times has the story of an Austin family that has decided to give away almost all of their worldly possessions in exchange for a simpler more sustainable life. Could you do it? Most folks credit Duane Elgin's book with giving rise to the Voluntary Simplicity movement, though some might argue Thoreau was a practitioner, and Helen and Scott Nearing were certainly modern pioneers. But could you simplify your life? Gandhi said "Be the change you want to see in the world", but Gandhi never had an iPhone to give up. Need inspiration? The Good Life Center at Forest Farm Helen and Scott Nearing's book, The Good Life (Excerpt) Thoreau's book Walden Other blogs and sites with helpful information: The Simple Living Network Simply Living Off the Grid Choosing Voluntary Simplicity The Great River Earth Network The Northwest Earth Institute Cage Free Family The blog of the family featured in the Times article.

Is life on Mars a good sign for us?

rongorongo — Mon, 12 May 2008 08:11:33 -0800

The "Great Filter" is a hypothetical barrier to explain why civilisations are so unlikely to progress to the point of inter-stellar colonisation that we have not encountered any in 40 years of looking. Maybe humanity has already negotiated the filter - as some massive evolutionary improbability - or perhaps it lies in our future as an almost-certain threat to our existence? We should hold our breath as we look for evidence of life on Mars.

Tales of the City

loquacious — Sun, 04 May 2008 01:20:49 -0800

In 1974 - or 1976, depending who you ask - Armistead Maupin began writing "an extended love letter to a magical San Francisco” in the form of a serialized, fictional drama published originally in the Pacific Sun, the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner, originally called "The Serial" which then became collectively known as Tales of The City. It is a suprisingly beautiful, deep, emotional, cosmopolitan and lasting tale about life in San Francisco in the turbulent, heady days of the 1970s and 1980s. Widely credited with and cherished for helping spread a little of the openess, tolerance and acceptance that San Francisco is now famous for. It then became a series of books - Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Further Tales of the City, Babycakes, Significant Others, Sure of You - and lastly, the spin-off tale of Michael Tolliver Lives. Almost exactly twenty years after first publishing, it then became an excellent miniseries from the United Kingdom's Channel 4, which aired in the United States on PBS, but not without protest or limitations. San Francisco... this post is for you. All of you. More than the Mission burritos, more than the diverse weather, more than the beautiful, breathtaking views and the odd experience of falling deeply in love with a place - and only slightly less than the many real people I've met - this has touched me the most. Thank you. (Get your YouTube samples here.)

We should seek the truth without hesitation!

carsonb — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:49:07 -0800

Why do we spend so many precious hours of our lives watching films? What is it about cinema that it should occupy a place of such prominence in our lives? And why do we even need movies? It is as though we are trying to fill a gap in our lives - a void, an emptiness within ourselves. So to even begin on the path of our Truth Quest, we have to see the broader picture of how film correlates to life, and life to film. To find this higher perspective, it is helpful to look towards the other arts, as well as philosophy.
Cinema Seekers: Searching for truth in cinema and in life. Above excerpt from Dies Irae.
The site is a little overwhelming. Here's a text only version. If the Web 1.0 design doesn't bother, I recommend starting with
The Honor Roll: 400 of the World's Greatest ART Films (from a spiritual perspective), a nice way to browse the essays on particular films and/or directors.
The Cinema Seekers, Gregory and Maria, are inspired by and draw their philosophy from the wisdom of Abd-ru-shin (Oskar Ernst Bernhardt), distilled in his book In the Light of Truth: The Grail Message. They've interpreted text from the book with a two-part (so far) series From Cinema to Life.