“Never just remember how to do something, understand how it works.”  As someone who has been known to answer, “Magic!” whenever anyone asks me how anything works, I’d say this advice given to designer Martin Rue by his grandfather is damn good and probably worth taking. And I love what Rue has come to understand about understanding after years of mulling over this delightful gem: If you simply remember how to do something, then all you can do is use it the same way over and over, but if you understand how it works, you can reason about it. Once you can reason about something in your mind you can contemplate why it is the way it is, you can apply your entire creative mind to making the most of it, and you can implement and question improvement – you own it intellectually. Read the rest of Rue’s fantastic post on the value of understanding here. [h/t...

[via GalleyCat] FIGHT CLUB and CHOKE novelist Chuck Palahniuk answered reader questions on Reddit this week. When one reader wrote “It’s rare for a writer’s first book to be as successful as Fight Club was,” Palahniuk clarified and shared some inspiring insight into his career: Please let me address a misperception. ‘Fight Club’ was a huge failure. Most of the hardcovers were going to be pulped. They were unsold when the movie opened… and then the movie was a flop. It has taken years ( decades ) for the story to build an audience. What’s amazing is that it still resonates for young readers; it’s never become dated. ( he shakes his head in disbelief...

Stephen King possibly explains why the HARRY POTTER series enjoys a much larger following than the TWILIGHT series. Basically, it comes down to character. Agree or disagree? ~via Bits of...

My BFF and I joke that we’re trying to raise our children right, so that they don’t become serial killers and embarrass us. But in many ways, we’re not joking, I think. As hard of work as parenting is now. I think raising Betty in a loving and encouraging and hands-on home now is a lot easier than trying to get her to embrace those values later on. And though I believe that children grow up to be themselves and not necessarily who you want them to be, I would feel rather guilty about my parenting job if she were to do something like pull a Bernie Maddoff. Anyway, this is all to say that I found this quote which Yvonne from “Homegrown Mosaic” posted the other day rather inspiring. Preach on, Brother Douglas. . “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men” –Fredrick...

“There’s an attitude that if all women don’t call themselves feminists we’ve failed…but the truth is that more women self identify as feminists than Republicans, so this is not so bad.” — Gloria Steinem, Smith ’56   Photo Credit: Mindy...

Wow. Total bridge-burning good-bye from a hedge fund manager found on Gawker who found it on Portfolio who found it on EatReadPlay. Here’s an excerpt. “I will no longer manage money for other people or institutions. I have enough of my own wealth to manage. Some people, who think they have arrived at a reasonable estimate of my net worth, might be surprised that I would call it quits with such a small war chest. That is fine; I am content with my rewards. Moreover, I will let others try to amass nine, ten or eleven figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck. Appointments back to back, booked solid for the next three months, they look forward to their two week vacation in January during which they will likely be glued to their Blackberries or other such devices. What is the point? They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten. I do not understand the legacy thing. Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.” Get the full background (which is pretty awesome) at Gawker. BT-dubs, I have no idea who Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen and Larry Ellison are. Should I know? Do you...

“Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.” –Jack Lynch, Professor of English at Rutgers...