Friday, March 17, 2017
Digital art by Andreas Nicolas Fischer Born in1982, Munich.... crss
Andreas Nicolas Fischer
Andreas Nicolas Fischer
Andreas Nicolas Fischer
Andreas Nicolas Fischer
Andreas Nicolas Fischer
Andreas Nicolas Fischer
Andreas Nicolas Fischer
Andreas Nicolas Fischer
Digital art by Andreas Nicolas Fischer
Born in1982, Munich. Berlin-based artist who works with generative systems, representations of data and visualisations of digital processes. Many of his abstract art pieces are created using software which creates images according to an algorithm. And still, Fisher manages to make bits of data look and feel natural.
Check our Facebook for more original art.
Posted by Very Private Art
Cinemagraphs and Animations from the mysterious “The Eternal... crss
Cinemagraphs and Animations from the mysterious “The Eternal Moonshine”
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye”……….
Regarding me, I have to say I don’t speak much about myself and the title the-eternal-moonshine refers to the way I create things in the shades of the night and its mysteries. I am stargazer, an eternal dreamer, and I just want to share some messages of tenderness, love and respect. Beyond that, I have always posted things that would speak for myself in a much more accurate way that I would probably ever do. The blog is full of little clues and secrets for the one who is curious. I am anonymous and no one of my friends or my family knows about that mysterious blog. That’s a way for me to leave it free and naive. Thanks again so much, and good night! ☆☆☆ Mr Moon
More unique art on Cross Connect Magazine:
Twitter || Facebook|| Instagram
Posted by Andrew
crssEveryone Can Be Sherlock Holmes, Build Your Mind Palace For Exceptional Memory
Sherlock Holmes has been a household fictional character for decades. Famous for being detail-minded, observant, logical, slightly (or very) sociopathic, Sherlock is also known for his memory technique — his MIND PALACE (or memory palace).
In the BBC crime drama Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) mentioned the word “mind palace” numerous times. He goes there to retrieve memories and information to piece together answers to solve crimes.
In this scene in the episode The Hounds of Baskerville, Sherlock was deciphering what the word “liberty” means.
Sherlock: Get out! I need to go to my mind palace.
Lab assistant: What?
John: He’s not going to be doing much talking for a while, we might as well go.
Lab assistant: (confused) His what?
John: Mind palace.
Then Dr. Watson continued to explain to the lab assistant what a mind (or memory) palace is. A memory palace is a mental map or location that stores past memories, and it allows a person to trace back to information whenever needed without missing any bits. Sounds complicated and abstract, right?
You may think this is the extraordinary power that Sherlock has, but long before Sherlock was even created the ancient Greek poet Simonides of Ceos invented the memory palace[1], scholastically known as the Method of loci. According to a myth, Simonides was asked to identify the remains of banqueters after the collapse of the hall. He then named each body based on where they sat in the hall. As amazing as it sounds, I’m sure some of you are still judging the idea of a memory palace.
Here is the response to all of the skeptism.
A research study [2] has proven that:
After spending six weeks cultivating an internal “memory palace”, people more than doubled the number of words they could retain in a short time period and their performance remained impressive four months later.
Yeah, so what?
We have all experienced that moment when we are in desperate need of something but we couldn’t find it because our room is too messy. It is the same for our memories. We tend to remember things in a random and chaotic way, so it becomes difficult to “search” and “trace” the memory back.
To easily grasp the concept of the memory palace, you don’t have to be a prodigy or own a specially-functioning super brain to strengthen your memory skills, and here are 4 steps to guide to a better memory:
1. Create your own memory palace
Your memory palace could be your office, your neighborhood, or even an imaginary fantasyland with unicorns. It doesn’t matter, as long as you are familiar with the place.
For beginners, I would suggest to visualize a place where you come in to contact with every so often, the more frequently the better, like your apartment. (Okay, let’s continue to use an apartment as the example at this point.)
2. Plan a route and follow it
Imagine you are standing at the entrance of your apartment and you plan a route to walk through it. It could be: dining area, living room, bedroom, and last bathroom; or garage, laundry room, dining area, living room, patio. You decide which is the best way for you to walk through the apartment, but once you are set on a route, stick to it!
(add photo of the route in the floor plan)
3. Pay attention (or create) detailed features
As you “walk” along the planned route, make sure to pay attention to every nook and cranny in the memory palace. Also, note every feature or item in a sequence, like left to right.
Look at the Van Gogh painting on the wall in the dining area, take note of the antique yellow-ish lamp hanging in the ceiling of the living room, remember the old, dying plant your grandma gave you for Christmas on the patio.
4. Associate things you want to memorize with your planned route
Take a shopping list as an example: you need a hat, banana, and vegetables.
Associate the things you want to memorize with the features in the palace: the hat you need with the Van Gogh painting, then banana with the lamp, and vegetables with the plant.
If you want to specifically remember something more vividly, exaggerate it in your imagination to make a lasting impression.
(add photo of association)
Now that you have the route and features, go try it!
Of course, what I have provided you is a simplified version of using the memory palace. There are people out there who memorize things with a different approach in their memory palaces. Some go above and beyond to create features to remember the 45 U.S. Presidents in order, from George Washington to the incumbent Donald Trump. Some prefer sticking to colors and associate items with them. Some use the linguistic approach to associate things with features that are similar in sound.
It goes to show you can use the memory palace for anything and everything, and you are not required to stick to the approach I shared. Find the best route for your own memory palace and always practice using it, and I’m sure you can tell people you memorize like Sherlock in no time!
Reference
| [1] | ^ | Smithsonian: The Secrets of Sherlock’s Mind Palace |
| [2] | ^ | The Guardian: Ancient technique can dramatically improve memory, research suggests |
The post Everyone Can Be Sherlock Holmes, Build Your Mind Palace For Exceptional Memory appeared first on Lifehack.
from Lifehack http://ift.tt/2mBeUwE
Don't Reply Messages Instantly. It Can Seriously Ruin Your Life
You’ve left the office for a well-deserved lunch break.
Just as you sit down in your favorite diner to enjoy your sandwich and coffee… your cellphone beeps to say you have a new message. You pick up your phone, read the message, and immediately begin to reply (even though it’s nothing important or time-sensitive).
By doing this, you’ve demonstrated a reactive state, where you’ve allowed your lunch break to be disrupted for a little reason.
When this type of behavior becomes habitual – you’ve become a slave to circumstances.
When you’re reactive, you allow your personal happiness to be determined by events outside of your control. And you take actions only based on what has happened.
Successful people on the other hand take actions based on their own plans. They are proactive and take charge of their own lives. They prioritize their work and won’t let people distract them and slow down their progress.
Replying messages instantly seem to be just a small problem. But it’s more serious than you thought. According to a 2014 survey, americans in 25-34 age check their phones 50 times per day. Imagine being interrupted 50 times per day![1] And we have 24 hours with 16 hours awake each day only. Which means every hour you would be interrupted at least 3 times. What big achievements can you have when you can’t even focus on your own?
So how can you eliminate such habit?
First, do you keep your phone with you at all times?
If yes, try leaving it at home from time to time, or at the very least, switching it to silent mode or just mute the groups. By doing this, you can then decide when you’ll check for messages, rather than being controlled by every message that comes through.
Life is too short to be dictated by endless messages arriving to your devices. Find time to shut off the noise, and instead, use this time to build a new, purpose-filled life.
Reference
The post Don’t Reply Messages Instantly. It Can Seriously Ruin Your Life appeared first on Lifehack.
from Lifehack http://ift.tt/2mxUCDz
How To Be More Interesting? Talk About Your Feelings Not Facts
It’s your first day of work.
On your first step into the company, you were bombarded with unfamiliar faces. Your eagerness to meet new colleagues urged you to say something but you couldn’t find an interesting topic to start with.
Anxious about your words. Fear about leaving a boring impression to the others.
Palms are sweating. How not to be boring?
Is being boring an inherent quality?
What makes a person interesting? The following qualities may come to your mind: Sense of humor, Extraordinary life experience. However, these qualities do not actually make a person interesting.
In fact, it is you that makes yourself an interesting or a boring person. None is born boring, nor is anyone more interesting than the others inherently. A seemingly boring person can become interesting if you know the tricks, being faithful to yourself and avoiding facts.
What do boring persons usually do?
One common talking style among boring persons is that they tend to be objective. They often talk about facts which the others are unable to better understand who they are through their fact-based content.
Communication is meant for boosting mutual understanding. Facts in no way can help achieve so. While finding an interesting book to read, you can choose to say, “the book is about the journey of an athlete to become a champion fighter”. You can also say, “I can relate myself a lot to the main character in the book I recently read. His perseverance motivates me a lot!”.
How not to bore others?
Everyone has their own set of knowledge and interest. Sometimes, the others may not be interested by your topic. You can only interest the others if you can connect with them by sharing what you feel. Even if they are not amused by your topic, they can relate to your own feelings and be interested.
The most interesting person may not have the most interesting experience, instead they usually talk with rich emotions to catch the attention. Up to this point, you should have grasped the essence of how to be interesting, but how in real life can you practise to be interesting?
So now you know you need to talk more about your emotions. However, many have stuck in the process of only uttering a few words. This is a good start but it is far from enough to be interesting. Instead of using some common words for describing your feelings, say “happy”, “upset”, or “furious”, try to be more specific!
Why are you “happy”? In what way does it make you “upset”? How “furious” were you in that incident?
Lack of self-understanding as the crux to boredom
If you struggle to do so, this means you may not understand your feelings well enough. Sometimes it is actually your lack of self understanding that makes you appear boring.
Here are a few tips which may help you learn to understand yourself better.
Keep a journal or jot down your feelings on your smartphones. Write about a major event happened that day. It can be anything that you have a strong emotion with. Talk to your inner self. Then describe clearly in words what and why you have the feeling and how the feeling is like.
For example, you can say, “Today I was scared to death because a fierce gigantic dog chased me. Dogs have always been my greatest fear in life. For one moment I thought I would die, either by the dog or by my own fear.” One important note is that: Don’t make up your emotions and be faithful to yourself. You may be frustrated at first if you couldn’t write a lot at the beginning but it is perfectly fine.
With frequent practices, you can soon see improvements and progresses and you are now only steps away from being interesting!
Lastly, apply the skills on daily conversation and start talking more and deeper about your own feelings. Then, congratulations, you have grown into an interesting person!
The post How To Be More Interesting? Talk About Your Feelings Not Facts appeared first on Lifehack.
from Lifehack http://ift.tt/2mB2LrE
Can You Believe That Sad Songs Actually Make Us Happy? See What Science Explains!
Most of us have tendency to avoid sad songs and music when we feel particularly down since we believe that it will make us feel even worse.
For most people, post-breakup behavior usually includes actually listening to a lot of sad songs whose music and lyrics speak of our woe in order to make us feel even worse and get all the sadness out as soon as possible. Yet, seems that we all had it wrong all along. Science proves the opposite is true – sad music actually makes us happier and improves our mental health. Here’s how.
Songs are sad but they bring positivity to our brain!
Similarly to the case of a musical device called appoggiatura found in a number of sad songs, such as Adele’s “Someone Like You”, there is a scientific explanation to why sad music actually makes us happy. David Huron, a professor of arts and humanities in the School of Music and the Center for Cognitive Science at the Ohio State University, has been studying the effects of sad music on people. During earlier studies, he has found that certain groups of people are more likely to listen to sad music – people with openness, experiences, and people who score high on neuroticism tests. According to Huron, the hormone prolactin is responsible for positive impact that sad music has on our feelings.
So What does sad song does to our brain?
Prolactin, mostly known as the hormone that causes lactation in breastfeeding women, is also being released during times of great grief. During great sorrow, our bodies produce the hormone as a natural soother to ease the process and help us cope easier. Similarly, as we are listening to sad songs, our body sends out a similar signal, which results in the production of prolactin. Therefore, as we listen to sad songs, we actually trick our body into creating a pleasant environment and happier feelings. “It’s as though Mother Nature has stepped in and said, ‘We don’t want the grief to get too exorbitant,'” Huron explains in an interview with The National.
So, no matter if you listen to sad music when you are feeling sad, or just because you like the feeling, now you have the scientific explanation of why you enjoy Adele’s music so much.
A list of songs You Can Listen to
- “Since U Been Gone,” Kelly Clarkson
- “Hello“, Adele
- “Irreplaceable,” Beyoncé
- “Cry Me a River,” Justin Timberlake
- “Someone Like You,” Adele
- “I Knew You Were Trouble,” Taylor Swift
- “Because of you“, Kelly Clarkson
- “The Heart Wants What It Wants” Selena Gomez
- “A Million Reasons“, Lady Gaga
- “Echoes of Silence,” The Weeknd
Featured photo credit: https://www.youtube.com/ via youtube.com
The post Can You Believe That Sad Songs Actually Make Us Happy? See What Science Explains! appeared first on Lifehack.
from Lifehack http://ift.tt/2m8YLTc
Why Being Too Nice Is A Curse. Here's How I Learn To Grow My Backbone.
Since we were toddlers, our parents, seniors, and teachers constantly tell us the importance of being nice. There’s nothing wrong with being nice, in fact, we should be nice to people. But have you encountered someone who goes overboard with their niceness?
There’s a fine line of being nice and TOO nice. Imagine the colleague who laughs at every single joke at work. Or the friend who compliments everything that you are doing. Or the stranger who starts a conversation with you and responds with “I agree”.
Do you find them nice or irritating? I think most people will say the latter. We might even find that person disingenuous. So what’s the key to be nice but not overly nice? Here are 3 tips for you to keep closely in mind:
Don’t only nod and agree
Sometimes, it is difficult to balance being nice and voicing our opinions. For some reason, we think others are fragile, and criticisms or disagreements can easily break a relationship, so we decide to go the safest route — nod and agree at everything.
In a conversation, person X thinks the world is getting more dangerous with technology. You nod with concurrence. At the same time, person Y thinks technology will bring a brighter future to the human race. You equally agree. What will you look like? An attentive person or one who is not paying attention?
Instead, we should be listening attentively while disagreeing when necessary.
Most people welcome disagreements during discussions. It is more important to argue with valid points than agree to everything. Of course, one more trick is to not our dignity at stake — this will make you nicer to talk to.
Praise with understanding
We all enjoy receiving compliments from others. And overly nice people shower you with praises almost too much. They say nice things about your haircut, lavish compliments on the minimalist design of your water bottle, or even admire your mid-day flossing habit. Unfortunately, their praises are often ill-targeted and give off a rather insincere impression.
The main reason behind is people who are too nice don’t truly understand the person they are complimenting. On the contrary, we should praise others according to what that particular person is actively proud of. People value accurate praises more than those stock phrases. So when we do bestow a compliment, we are more likely to receive a proper resonance from the other side.
Sympathy speaks louder than cheerful words
Being positive is not wrong. But it doesn’t necessarily mean blindly spewing sunshines and rainbows to a person who is feeling blue. Overly nice people are often remorselessly upbeat, it actually does not help to comfort others.
The more effective communication and the last tip of being nice but not too nice, is to give proper responses instead of immersing the person you are trying to comfort into the pool of optimism. Sometimes, people just want a pair of ears to listen, and often, they only want someone to understand them.
Let’s think about this as the person who is going through tough times. What would you prefer? The overly nice person who emphasizes your positive attributes, or the nice person who doesn’t say much but listens?
Needless to say, we tend to be cheered up by the ones who sympathize and are willing to travel through our sorrows, anxieties, confusions, frustrations, and hesitations with us.
It sounds pretty complicated, isn’t it?
Well, it seems difficult to truly be nice but not too nice. After all, being nice follows one simple principle — put yourself in the shoes of others.
One of the reasons why people are overly nice is because they are intimidated by others. They are afraid of social failure, and by expressing an excessive amount of humility, they are under a false assumption that being extremely nice and friendly is the best way to interact with others.
On the flip side, when a person understands the needs of others, s/he is able to make others feel satisfied. Spend the time to grasp what is pleasing to others and take the effort to build real and close relationships by being the “nice but not too nice” friend.
The post Why Being Too Nice Is A Curse. Here’s How I Learn To Grow My Backbone. appeared first on Lifehack.
from Lifehack http://ift.tt/2mAU6FS