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Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (circa 1490)

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Re: Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (circa 1490)

#61

Post by norea-armozel »

tpeo wrote: post #12
norea-armozel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I never understood why people aren't more curious. I'm always looking for articles about how things are made, the history of given locations, and whatever just seems interesting. I never see anyone else with a marginally equivalent level of curiosity especially for my age (mid-30s). Seems like people get swallowed whole by their social lives and careers.

What makes you think they aren't as curious as you? They might just be into different subjects. Plus, if there's nothing that suggests that you might be interested, they might self-censor comments about their own hobby subjects when talking to you.

I think it's not that they're uncurious but that maybe their lives are full of a routine that limits acting on it hence why I said they get swallowed whole by their daily lives.

Re: Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (circa 1490)

#62

Post by GuiA »

pjc50 wrote: post #52
GuiA wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm left handed, and was educated in a country where using a fountain pen is required until middle school (at least it was when I was growing up). Every time there was a smudge on a piece of work, my 2nd grade teacher would tear it apart and make me do it all over again. I usually finished way before the other kids anyways, and even doing that I was still usually done before the others. I can write really neatly now…

How did you achieve that? I ended up writing "overhand" (mirrored in the plane of the nib from the right-hand method), so the edge of my hand was always on top of the work. I ended up using blotter paper to avoid resting directly on the already-written ink. > Every time there was a smudge on a piece of work, my 2nd grade teacher would tear it apart and make me do it all over again Ah, the brutal conformism of educati…

Yeah, pretty much something like that. My hand tends to be higher above what I write, and I avoid contact with the paper as much as possible. I also use blotting paper.

Some inks dry faster too, so it's worth trying a few different ones.

I still mostly use a fountain pen for taking notes, which gets me a lot of weird looks at work (first for taking notes on paper, then because of the fountain pen).

Re: Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (circa 1490)

#63

Post by vidarh »

personlurking wrote: post #26

Before I reached the last sentence, I looked hard at the image and opened it in a new tab, thinking I could read his writing (since I learned high-intermediate Italian). Nope, it's mirrored [1], which may have had to do with his dyslexia. Looking into it briefly, I came across a guy [2] who taught himself to write like Da Vinci (note: full-screen sign-up prompt upon clicking). Skip to to the 6th paragraph starting wi…

Huh, I've know about Da Vinci's mirror writing since I was a kid, and I've tried it and never thought about it as something that might be hard for anyone. I just tried two sentences and the first one was hard - I kept wanting to do the shapes "the right way", but the second one was pretty speedy.

I wouldn't say it was very readable, but then again my normal writing isn't either. I'm left handed, though.

Re: Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (circa 1490)

#64

Post by vidarh »

LeoDox wrote: post #55
norea-armozel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I never understood why people aren't more curious. I'm always looking for articles about how things are made, the history of given locations, and whatever just seems interesting. I never see anyone else with a marginally equivalent level of curiosity especially for my age (mid-30s). Seems like people get swallowed whole by their social lives and careers.

These days asking questions of an expert usually gets you a response of JFGI, but learning used to be equal parts "learning the actual thing" and "having fun and stimulating conversations with like-minded people" so without the latter, curiosity is less rewarding these days. That's why it's important for those with knowledge to give back to the community by giving of their time. CoderDojo for example Having said that…

> These days asking questions of an expert usually gets you a response of JFGI

To me it seems that most people I ask questions of are happy to respond. But the key thing being that the ease of asking people questions means that you need to ask people questions they haven't heard a thousand times and written a book about. And that you can easily answer with Google.

It's lazy ad insulting if you e-mail and ask something you'd find a whole article about on the persons site, for example, because it implies you couldn't be bothered to even see they've already written about the subject, and don't respect their time.

But if you ask about the finer points of something they've written, on the other hand, they are more likely to be flattered, intrigued or at least willing to point you in the right direction.

Re: Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (circa 1490)

#65

Post by themodelplumber »

INTPenis wrote: post #48
themodelplumber wrote: post #45

Wow, I'm actually writing a book that reads just like this list. It's meant for INTJs, it's got 300 suggested activities--similar to those on Da Vinci's list in terms of theme if not object. I'm about to hit publish and seeing this article makes me feel pretty excited. I wonder if Newton also kept to-do lists...

Well... what's the ISBN, title?!

Haha. Well, I've got a few more steps (graphic design being a huge one) but here's a sample. The full book has just over 300 activities to try; this one has 50. All of the content is final, so I hope to get the book to the major self-publishing outlets in the next month or two.

http://www.friendlyskies.net/files/etexts/sample/300-INTJ-St...

Scroll way down for the meat. Love to know what you think.

Re: Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (circa 1490)

#66

Post by voidz »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #37
norea-armozel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I never understood why people aren't more curious. I'm always looking for articles about how things are made, the history of given locations, and whatever just seems interesting. I never see anyone else with a marginally equivalent level of curiosity especially for my age (mid-30s). Seems like people get swallowed whole by their social lives and careers.

> I never see anyone else with a marginally equivalent level of curiosity especially for my age (mid-30s) I'm in my early 30s, and the combination of work and having a very young child certainly puts an upper bound on the available free time and energy you have in any given day.

I hear ya.

Re: Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (circa 1490)

#67

Post by aduffy »

personlurking wrote: post #26

Before I reached the last sentence, I looked hard at the image and opened it in a new tab, thinking I could read his writing (since I learned high-intermediate Italian). Nope, it's mirrored [1], which may have had to do with his dyslexia. Looking into it briefly, I came across a guy [2] who taught himself to write like Da Vinci (note: full-screen sign-up prompt upon clicking). Skip to to the 6th paragraph starting wi…

HN: come for the links, stay for the 20+ replies about the benefits of mirror writing.

Re: Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (circa 1490)

#68

Post by internaut »

norea-armozel wrote: post #60
tpeo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think they aren't as curious as you? They might just be into different subjects. Plus, if there's nothing that suggests that you might be interested, they might self-censor comments about their own hobby subjects when talking to you.

I think it's not that they're uncurious but that maybe their lives are full of a routine that limits acting on it hence why I said they get swallowed whole by their daily lives.

You would enjoy James Burke's Connections series. It is curiosity driven.

There are very few Renaissance men (and women) around today. I've met a startling number of people who spend time online but never encountered Wikipedia, there is also very large number of university students who have no interest in reading. This goes to show it is not about access to information or elite institutions.

That doesn't mean it's not worth doing. It is probably more worthwhile because fewer people are doing it. One prominent example among ourselves is Gwern, he is a great example to us. A lot of the most interesting threads on HN are where the discussion is regarding something not obviously connected to programming, such as woodworking. The most famous AMA in Reddit's history was a vacuum cleaner salesman, which was fascinating and bolstered my regard for Redditors as a healthy if fractious community with a native curiosity not evident on most social networking sites. In my opinion the best people have a mixture of useful values from different social classes - working, middle, upper. LessWrong has an expression parallel to this I'll paraphrase as 'hold your identity loosely'.

If anybody feels like they're stuck in a rut, unmotivated to be 'curiosity-productive', check out 'Japanology' on Youtube. Peter Barakan could make anything interesting. I always get a lift after watching his documentaries.

Re: Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (circa 1490)

#69

Post by internaut »

jamestimmins wrote: post #13
tomjen3 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder how our lives would be if we did more to work on our bucket lists than our todo lists.

Some of the best (perhaps cliché) advice I've gotten is not to confuse urgency with importance. It's far too easy to constantly be busy and checking things off of a list, while letting the really high-leverage things go unaddressed. An antidote I've found is to book big things far out, because then urgency doesn't come into play (I'm not worried about the laundry I need to do in March), and I can make the decision ba…

Have you considered getting rid of your mobile telephone? People's ability to prioritize is shattered with these devices or perhaps their ability to use them.

Re: Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (circa 1490)

#70

Post by Nomentatus »

kstenerud wrote: post #14

What the article fails to recognize is the sheer difficulty and expense involved in acquiring information in those days. You not only needed lots of money; you also needed status and political friends who could connect you through their networks to people who know things about your subject of interest. Even getting a peek into a book was an arduous affair, sometimes taking years. There's a reason why the gentry were…

And a reason why I was so keen on collecting books in 1969, too. If you didn't buy it while it was in print, or the moment you spotted it in a used bookstore, you might never see it again in your lifetime. Now I'm going through and dumping a whole lot of those books, (or should be.)
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