the black telescope

Learn skills you can always rely on.

1. Self-Discipline: Get better at ignoring the negative voice in your head. Get out of your bed. Go to the gym. Don’t listen to “I don’t want to.”
2. Personal Effectiveness: Learn how to maximize the results you can get during the 16–18 hours you’re awake. Get more done — effectively.
3. Communication: We think we’re all master communicators. But the truth is that we suck. Communication is both art and science. And our ability to work with others depends on it.
4. Negotiation: You negotiate all the time. With your spouse, kids, parents, teachers, friends, co-workers, managers, etc. Learn to get the best deal for all parties.
5. Persuasion: Learn how to get what you want in an ethical way.
6. Physical Strength & Stamina: Getting stronger is a skill. Pull your own weight. It’s something every human should be able to do.
7. Flexibility: Sitting all day long behind your computer or in your car turns you into a stiff being. Learn how to stretch your hips, lower back, hamstrings, and calves — the most common weak points of desk workers.

That’s enough to keep you busy for a lifetime if you want to do it well. Pick a skill that excites you. Get better at it. Then, pick another. And keep on repeating that process.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): At one point in his career, the mythical Greek hero Hercules was compelled to carry out a series of twelve strenuous labors. Many of them were glamorous adventures: engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a monstrous lion; liberating the god Prometheus, who’d been so kind to humans, from being tortured by an eagle; and visiting a magical orchard to procure golden apples that conferred immortality when eaten. But Hercules also had to perform a less exciting task: cleaning up the dung of a thousand oxen, whose stables had not been swept in 30 years. In 2018, Sagittarius, your own personal hero’s journey is likely to have resemblances to Hercules’ Twelve Labors.

By Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com

I had a dream the other night, Tuesday I think, where I’d been invited to play with some significant folks and my bass playing was woeful.

People, audience members, friends, would come up to me and talk briefly, with circumspection, with sadness in their eyes. And I continued to play blithely ignorant to how poor every aspect of my performance was. I was not invited back.

Seldom does my unconscious manifest so strongly.

There’s a meme-ish app doing the rounds on Facebook called I Write Like which compares a portion of your writing with successful writers.
So far my style compares with Agatha Christie, Vladimir Nabokov, Arthur C. Clarke, David Foster Wallace, H.G. Wells and Stephanie Meyer.

Even though I’ve written no fiction for over a year, I feel quietly pleased with these results…

Have a wee go!

So Soundcloud have updated their subscription model: 

We’re happy to announce the latest way to experience SoundCloud – offline and ad free for just £5.99/month. Listen to all the amazing tracks you can only find on SoundCloud anywhere, anytime with our new SoundCloud Go subscription.

They’re charging the listeners and they’re charging the creators. Where is my royalty cheque SoundCloud? You provide the listening stats for each of the 81 songs under my account so it shouldn’t be too tricky for you to figure out.

Oh, it’s invite only? That’s just peachy.

And while you’re at it, how about figuring out how to tell the difference between a paid content creator account and a free listener account, and using that info to avoid spamming people who pay already pay you with demands for more money just to listen?