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“Look only, and solely, at what are the facts”

I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral. The intellectual thing I should want to say to them is this.

When you are studying any matter or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only “what are the facts?” and “what is the truth that the facts bear out?”

Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts.

That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say. The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very simple.

I should say love is wise, hatred is foolish.

In this world which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way. And if we are to live together and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.

From Bertrand Russell interview with John Freeman for the BBC’s “Face to Face”, originally aired 4 March 1959 (source).

Bertrand Russell’s response when asked what lessons from his life may be worth imparting to future generations. Russell was 86 years old when the interview aired.

Separate but related: “A Little History of Philosophy” by Nigel Warburton. Very digestible and enjoyable. Must be noted that the author omits a few big names and focuses entirely on Western philosophy. Fair enough, would probably be 300% longer otherwise.

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48 hours in Paris

Most of the places we ate, drank, window-shopped, and explored within 48 hours last weekend.

E.Dehillerin · Loup · Epices Rœllinger · Empreintes · Galerie Perrotin · Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle · Une Glace à Paris · Caffè Jadis · Marché aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves · Rue des Martyrs · Lepic Assiette · Fête des Vendanges de Montmartre · Galeries Lafayette · Centre Pompidou

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Allsorts

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GitHub repo for lobste.rs

lobste.rs is a link aggregator by Joshua Stein that runs on Rails. See the About page for a run down of it’s features and the reasons behind them.

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What Do We Lose When It’s Easy to Use? In Defence of Inefficiency

Lecture by Andy Pressman of Rumors and Verso Books for DWP.

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“The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge” by Rainer Maria Rilke

‘There are no beginners’ classes in life. What is required of you is always the hardest thing, right from the start.’

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before sleep at the end of love (description of a lullaby)

Tuesday 27 September 2016, 7–7.30pm
Bold Tendencies, Car park floors 7-10, 95A Rye Ln, London SE15 4TG
Tickets £8 on door

An opera by Sarah Hardie. Music composed collaboratively with Jack Sheen, choreography by Eleesha Drennan. Performance by Sarah Hardie, Angela Hardie, and Musarc. I’ve really enjoyed working on this and am looking forward to the performance.

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Semi-transparent “real” shadows in Photoshop

[This is an ancient draft note I forgot to publish. Had to dig it out for a current task so figured it was time to press go.]

Struck upon a good way to isolate a semi-transparent, real shadow in Photoshop CC when trying to remove the background of an image. This can be appropriate for things such as package or portfolio shots.

This technique seems to work well so long as the shadow is against a fairly even background. An example of where I’ve found this useful is with some scans of booklet spreads. A false shadow wouldn’t look right because it wouldn’t have the variable character of the original shadow.

  1. Draw path around object throwing the shadow (omitting the shadow).
  2. Copy/paste object on to new layer. cmd + J
  3. Select layer w/ full image.
  4. Use Color Range to select the shadows. Switch the dropdown to “Shadows”. The fuzziness and range will really depend on your image, so start in the middle for each and it out a few times to see what works best. Usually fuzziness = 100% and range = 70 works well for me.
  5. With the shadows selected, create a new empty layer above the full image layer.
  6. In the new empty layer, fill the selection with black or a similar dark colour.
  7. Turn off the full image layer visibility to remove the background, and adjust the opacity of the shadow layer. I found that 80% works well.

The downside of this technique is that the replicated shadow ends up being a flat colour and is missing the natural hue nuances, but overall this worked well for my purposes.