Techniques for Consciousness Change – Robert Anton Wilson

Excellent interview with one of my favorite subversive philosophers, Robert Anton Wilson, on the topic of self-directed consciousness change, or “meta-programming the bio-computer” as Wilson often refers to these techniques.

As usual with Wilson, the topics range freely across many disciplines from psychedelic drugs to yoga to quantum physics to Sufi mystics and CIA brainwashing conspiracies. This is an excerpt from the full audio program, “Robert Anton Wilson Explains Everything“.

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The Apple Artist Podcast #15

I just posted our 15th podcast over at The Apple Artist. If you’re a digital artist working on a Mac, this is for you. Joined by my Mac artist friends Krishna Sadasivam and Tracy Bishop. We discuss the popular Cintiq alternative Yiynova MSP19u and the brand new Manga Studio 5. As usual, filled with other tips, app suggestions and other geeky stuff. I’ve even been told that PC artists find it helpful!

More Yiynova MSP19u & Manga Studio 5 – The Apple Artist Podcast #15 – The Apple Artist.

6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person [link]

Do the math: How much of your time is spent consuming things other people made TV, music, video games, websites versus making your own? Only one of those adds to your value as a human being.

via 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person | Cracked.com.

An interesting post by the great David Wong over at Cracked. What really stood out for me was the quoted line above. I’ve been trying to become more of a contributor to the internet lately, whether via blog posts or my artwork. Sometimes one forgets that all those helpful reviews and articles you’re browsing were created by someone else taking the time to write and post them. I’m trying to be more of a contributor/creator and less of a consumer. I think of it as an internet version of “carbon credits” — each time you get something useful from a blog post, you should add a useful post yourself.

Be sure to check out other posts by Wong, good stuff.

The War of Art: An Artist’s User Manual

“The War of Art” by Stephen Pressfield has popped up on my radar for a while now, and I finally got around to picking up a copy. I liked it so much, I got the audiobook version as well.

I’m going to start off by quoting my own review over on GoodReads:

Pressfield seems to have distilled the essence of the creative blocks we face, and provides some valid advice for moving past them. This book is succinct, not short. At first the small chapters we off-putting, but after completing the book I realized that this could be read in one sitting, and I think it was designed that way.

Less of a how-to book and more of a lens to help focus. I found myself nodding in agreement as well as reframing and understanding events, thoughts and choices I’ve made in the past (and those I’m resisting in the present) in a new light.

Pressfield has written a book that feels like someone took all the vague thoughts you’ve had as an artist about being an artist, and put them together in a way that’s both universal and personal. Less inspirational and more of a user manual.

Media Rename – WordPress Plugin

Handy plugin for WordPress to rename the filename of your images. Great for use when uploading to your blog via the WordPress iOS app, since the iPhone doesn’t allow you to change filenames on photos and WordPress itself offers no functionality to do this — which both should have by default.

Display Recent Blog Posts as a Thumbnail Gallery in WordPress [plugin]

Get Post List With Thumbnails is an excellent little plugin for self-hosted WordPress sites that allows you to display your recent blog posts as a thumbnail grid of images with support for using the Featured Image thumbnails for a nice clean uniform image from each post. Perfect for us artists wanting to use WordPress for an online portfolio.

Custom Post WP Gallery Plugin: Image Galleries From Pages, Posts or Custom Post Types

Custom Post WP Gallery is the portfolio plugin I’ve been wanting for WordPress for a long time. It’s very simple, but does exactly what I wanted: allows you to have a thumbnail image gallery that pulls the images from specific Pages or Custom Post Types, using the Featured Image functionality. The latter is what I really wanted so I could keep the portfolio as a separate unit within the website. While there are tons of thumbnail gallery plugins out there, all seem to have way too many features I’d never use, and are proprietary so if the plugin gets abandoned you’re stuck. By tapping into built-in features of WordPress, at least you are ensured some level of being future-proofed. 

Schedule Posts Calendar: WordPress Plugin

This Schedule Posts Calendar WordPress plugin is something I’ve been wanting for a while. I tend to schedule blog posts for my cartooning blog in bulk, and like to publish them on a regular weekly schedule. I like to do so on the same day every week, and it’s a pain having to double-check the dates and manually type in the info.

I’ve only just installed it but it does just what I need and works great. Hopefully it doesn’t cause any problems or conflicts!

Bell and Gong Ringtones

Some nice Zen bell and gong ringtones, already in the Apple .m4r ringtone format. Nice-sounding tones, and great clean recordings of the sounds. Great for meditation timing or just for unobtrusive alarms sounds. Free.

8-Bit Jesus

 

8Bit Jesus | 8BitPixels.