The past few weeks I’ve been really into cutting up my tshirts to breathe some new life into them. I’m super excited about my latest tshirt surgery discovery, which resulted in the above beauty! This is the tutorial I used:
Ever want to kaleidoscope a website? Now you can!
You might have noticed my recent obsession with fractal imagery. PSD Tuts taught me how to make them!
The Interplanetary Internet: Towards a Matrioshka Brain? gave me goosebumps! The article talks about the possibility of us being simulations in a computer, & the potential that our descendants will be indistinguishable from the network we now know as the Internet. What do you think?
I have been meaning to do an inspiration post for weeks, so I have lots of things to share! I will try to keep them organized…
Food!
- First, we have raw vegan ice cream bars from Veggie Wedgie. We haven’t tried them yet, but they look incredible.
- We made this white chocolate dark chocolate raspberry torte with Annalise. The first piece is incredible, but don’t eat too much or the cashews become a little overpowering!
- We’ve been buying a lot of raw ingredients on Amazon because they are nearly half the price of Whole Foods! Check them out for raw cacao, hemp oil, & hemp protein.
- This raw vegan dude, Philip McClusky, is so sexy. He did a 100 day juice fast & tells us everything about it.
Blogging, music & design
- Learn how to write better headlines for your site at Copyblogger! Very formulaic, but it’s quite interesting, psychologically, to see what works.
- This site has 100 inspirational posts to make you a better writer.
- Get some serious inspiration from Coilhouse, who just released a new issue.
- My sister just started a new blog, called the Bitte Schön Beast. “Here be sketch comics about stuff in Berlin (where I live), American Studies stuff (which I study) (in Berlin), & best-of moments from English teaching.”
- I’ve been listening to Johnny Hollow again, for the first time since I was 19. It is beautiful gothy music, give it a taste. :]
- My friend has a gorgeous Tumblr full of sexy, gothy ladies.
- OMFG Anna Wintour is the hottest person on the planet.
- A great funding resource for artists!
- This Twitter tool, ManageFlitter, changed my Twitter life! I used it to unfollow about 300 accounts & I feel so refreshed! Thanks to Sarah Wilson for the suggestion.
- Financial transparency in a blog is so hot. So is this list of 25 Inspiring Blogs To Help You Sell Your Crap, Pay Off Your Debt, and Do What You Love.
All the rest!
- 18 ways to do things Apple doesn’t want you to do.
- Cory Doctorow reveals the tools & systems that he uses to get his work done.
- Ok, it’s official. I want a Nexus One. Please please please! It’s sounds so open & liberating!
- Do you have happy friends? Emotions are contagious! (Thanks Ariel!)
What’s inspiring you this week?
I often find myself wondering what the hell I’m doing in life. Whether it’s working on this site, or working on my health, I usually need a bit of external motivation to stay positive and moving forward. This week (and every week…) I’m focusing on making this site better! Here are some delicious treasures that have been inspiring me!
1. Copyright is obsolete!
Leo Babauta at Zen Habits has an awesome copyright policy on his blog.
Now, I’m granting full permission to use any of my content on Zen Habits or in my ebook, Zen To Done, in any way you like. I release my copyright on this content. From now on, there is no need to email me for permission. Use it however you want! Email it, share it, reprint it with or without credit. Change it around, put in a bunch of swear words and attribute them to me. It’s OK.
Since studying it extensively in school, I’ve been a firm believer in the uselessness of copyright. Reading this post has inspired me to finally release my copyright on this site. I’ve released it on past websites to no ill effects, so I announce it again! I release my copyright to the content on this site.
2. Graphic design done right
theFourthStar.com is the graphic design portfolio and blog of Cara McKinley. We attended the same graphic design program at the University of Illinois. Cara’s site is exquisitely designed with mad attention to detail. Her work is always polished and finished, and it reminds me that yes, I am a graphic designer too, and I want my work to be as good as hers! I’ve floated away from the field of graphic design, but am returning to my roots to overhaul the design of this site :] If you ever need an amazing graphic designer who will treat you right, contact Cara!
3. How to increase website traffic
Steve Pavlina has the best personal development blog I’ve ever read. His articles are timeless, useful and endlessly inspiring. My current favorite article of his is “How to Build a High-Traffic Website (or Blog).” As I move into life post-graduate school, I am plowing full steam ahead into the world of full-time lifestreaming. Steve’s articles helped me to figure out my life purpose and the reasons WHY I want to have a high-traffic website. Yes, I want to make a living from lifestreaming, but mostly I want everyone else in the world to lifestream too! So now that I know I want this site to actually help people and not just collect a mirror reflection of my life, I am much more focused in my creative efforts.
4. Make commenting more pleasant!
If you have a WordPress blog and have not yet installed this plugin, it’s a must! Ever comment on a blog and wonder if anyone ever replied to you? You can make it way easier on your readers to come back and keep the discussion going! “Subscribe to Comments is a robust plugin that enables commenters to sign up for e-mail notification of subsequent entries.”
5. The search for success & meaning of life
I recently found out about Brian Johnson’s Philosophers Notes. “Think mini CliffsNotes™ for personal growth books – giving you more wisdom in less time.” Although I have yet to drop the $99 for a site membership, the short book summaries are worth the visit alone. The quote Brian pulled from Deepak Chopra’s The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success resonated with me hard, so I’m adding the book to my summer-time reading list:
Success in life could be defined as the continued expansion of happiness and the progressive realization of worthy goals. Success is the ability to fulfill your desires with effortless ease. And yet success, including the creation of wealth, has always been considered to be a process that requires hard work, and it is often considered to be at the expense of others. We need a more spiritual approach to success and affluence, which is the abundant flow of all good things to you. With the knowledge and practice of spiritual law, we put ourselves in harmony with nature and create with carefreeness, joy, and love.
That’s all for this week’s lifestream inspiration. What is inspiring you to create this week? What is motivating you to stay positive? What do you want to share with the world, and how?
Today’s lifestream inspiration is brought to you by some hot girls on the Internet. Seeing people share themselves in beautiful ways makes me excited about lifestreaming!
1. Evelyn Cates is a vegan, WoW playing, super sexy alt model and ‘cam girl’. I probably came across her in the “vegan” Twitter search column in my Tweetdeck. I follow her blog, where she mixes diary entry type posts with hot pix and videos. I’m guessing her video chats at onhercam.com are smokin.
2. Ok so not exactly a hot girl on the Internet, but modeled by hot girls on the Internet, Jungle Tribe steampunk militia bags are my ultimate survival-pack wet dream. The SPM blasting bag 4.0 in dark brown leather pictured above would be perfect for exploring the city on hallucinogens, or whatever it is you like to do with your hands free.
3. FUNokay! is a pretty girl I somehow found on Flickr, and I adore her self portraits. The above I found here and here. I so need to get back into nice self portraits, maybe even with a real camera!
I am refining the focus of my lifestream a bit more, to begin thinking about what this site and me will do together after graduation this May.
Usually Kelly and I have this conversation together, and it’s about the podcast. What is the point of our podcast? What do we want people to get out of it? Who is our audience? Why do we do it? We love doing it, so how can we make money from it?
But the podcast is running smoothly at this moment, with a shiny new focus itself (lifefucking the wellness revolution!). We have a plan for future episodes (copy Penelope! tinker like Gever!), and still like how our premium subscription service is working out.
A personal lifestream is a different beast from a team podcast, but still needs to be asked the same critical questions. What is the point of this lifestream? What do I want people to get out of it? Who is my audience? Why do I do it? I love it, so how can I make money from it?
I wanted to write this post to answer those questions, to share some perspective on why this site exists and will continue to exist, even after graduation.
I went to graduate school to get my MFA so I could teach design as a tenure-track faculty member at a university. Specifically, University of Illinois. I couldn’t hack a day job, or even graphic design freelancing anymore, so I decided to follow my idol and mentor, Jennifer Gunji, and become a professor.
I didn’t realize I was just buying time to think. After the past two years in my design program at UT, I’ve found what I want to do with my life–podcast and lifestream! And of course I hope to one day support myself doing it. Onto the questions:
What is the point of this lifestream? I want to constantly inspire myself to be a better person than I was yesterday. Documenting my life makes me slow down and think about every choice I make.
What do I want people to get out of it? I realized very recently that the only way to be happy is to help other people. So how can I help people? I want to teach, sure, but what that really means is that I want to inspire people to passionately create. The definition of “inspiration” is “the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.” I want to show that by lifestreaming, every decision can be inspiration.
All that means is that by documenting the details of daily existence, we give importance to them. We make them meaningful. And when we make our breakfast meaningful, we can’t help but make incrementally better decisions about our breakfast. For me, lifestreaming provides the inspiration to incrementally improve my life one decision at a time.
So that’s what I want people to get out of this site–inspiration in every decision.
Who is my audience? Honestly, it’s the ladies just like me. Girls who thirst for a constant stream of inspiration, positivity, and new perspective.
Why do I do it? to be accountable for my actions and to have conversations with people. I post all this shit online all day every day because it keeps me honest. I used to be a big fat liar, and I was unhappy with myself. And by putting it all out there on the web, I can have ongoing discussions about the exact things I care about with people all over the world.
I love it, so how can I make money from it? That is the part I’m still working on. I realized that the only time I spend money for digital content is when I need inspiration. I’ve paid for Amanda Palmer‘s records, downloaded Gala Darling‘s podcast, and bought tshirts from Dawn and Drew, all my prime sources of inspiration. So I thought a fair trade would be to provide inspiration, and hopefully get some money in return. My budget’s not that big, and I only need enough to survive (and save 20% of course). The question is now: How will I provide inspiration? That is now the focus of my lifestream.
I’m working on several posts/articles about how to exist with a split personality, how to cut out caffeine (or die trying), and how to choose a tattoo. However today I am so discombobulated and split-personalitied that I can only find inspiration to not go back to bed.
1. China Doll on Flickr. I am working on a hair dye plan and stumbled across this pretty girl on Biorequiem…
2. Traumzeit tarot. It is driving me absolutely crazy not being able to find higher res version of this image! The Ace & Six of Wands are giving me brand new beautiful ideas for my tattoo. I want to order a deck but navigating the artist’s site seems a fruitless labyrinth.
3. David Gelernter’s interview on Big Think about lifestreaming. They use my illustration for the video still!
The following are my tasty treasures of lifestream inspiration to get me through the weekend. What is inspiring you today?
A friend from college, Jonathan, introduced me to Die Antwoord today. Yo-landi’s hair alone is LIFE CHANGING MOTIVATION to do something different.
Next, Kelly and I are working on a MONTHLY PUBLICATION! Temporarily titled UTOPIA, it will be a PDF lifestyle design zine debuting in March for my inaugural birthday issue. I came across the following publication the other day, which contributed to our run-fueled decision. The New Minimum: “Our priority is to match good content with great art direction.”
Lastly, I have been OBSESSED with Zoetica Ebb lately. She pulls together her diverse interests and activities into one exquisite brand. Writing, fashion, art & photography all so delicately consistent, carefully orchestrated, and painfully gorgeous. I need to steal her site category scheme.
by allan amato
