EDI TIMES

In the diagram Kricher arranges eighteen objects in two vertical columns and then determines the number of arregments in which they can be combined. By the same method Kricher further estimates that 50 objects may be arreanged in 1,273,726,838,815,420,339,851,343,083,767,005,515,293,749,454,795, …473,408,000,000,000,000 combinations. From this it will be evident that infinite diversity is possible, for the countless parts of the universe may be related to each other in an incalculable number of ways; and through the various combinations of these limitless subdivisions of being, infinite individuality and infinite variety must inevitably result. Thus it is further evident that life can never become monotonous or exhaust the possibilities of variety.

Gracias a David Nazul Quijano

(By: Paulo Coelho)

– We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body. Many times in our lives we see our dreams shattered and our desires frustrated, but we have to continue dreaming. If we don’t, our soul dies

‘The Good Fight is the one we Fight because our heart asks it of us.The Good Fight is the one that’s fought in the name of our dreams. When we are young our dreams first explode inside us with all of their force, we are very courageous, but we haven’t yet learned how to Fight. With great effort, we learn how to Fight, but by then we no longer have the courage to go into combat. So we turn against ourselves and do battle within. We become our own worst enemy. We say that our dreams were childish, or too difficult to realize, or the result or our not having known enough about life. We kill our dreams because we are afraid to Fight the Good Fight.

“The first symptom of the process of killing our dreams is lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The Truth is, they are afraid to Fight the Good Fight…

“The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don’t want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what’s important is only that they are Fighting the Good Fight.

“And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams-we have refused to Fight the Good Fight.

“When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go through a period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being. We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves.
“What we sought to avoid in combat-disappointment and defeat-came upon us because of our cowardice. And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breath, and we actually seek death. It’s death that frees us from out certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of Sunday afternoons.”

Paulo Coelho

Americans’ print consumption has declined since 1960, but words delivered by computer have more than made up the difference. (Image courtesy of the University of San Diego’s Global Information Industry Center)

Conventional wisdom holds that YouTube, videogames, cable TV and iPods have turned us away from the written word. Glowing streams of visual delights replaced paper and longhand letters shrank to bite-sized Facebook status updates, the theory held. Conventional wisdom, in this case, is wrong.
A large-scale study by the University of San Diego and other research universities revealed what some of us have long suspected: We’re reading far more words than we used to as we adopt new technologies.
“Reading, which was in decline due to the growth of television, tripled from 1980 to 2008, because it is the overwhelmingly preferred way to receive words on the Internet,” found a University of San Diego study (.pdf) published this month by Roger E. Bohn and James E. Short of the University of San Diego.
Americans consumed 3.6 billion terabytes of information last year, averaging 11.8 hours of information consumption per day. Video and videogames constituted 55 percent of those bytes, but on average, Americans read 36 percent of the 100,500 words they consume each day, according to the San Diego study, which analyzed more than 20 data sources. The study doesn’t cover writing, but a simple glance at Facebook feeds reveals that we’re almost certainly writing more than we used to, as well.
Admittedly, posting “OMG best pizza ever C U l8r” to a mix of strangers, friends and acquaintances is not the same as carrying on a lengthy epistolary relationship.
“The Internet is about the death of the written word as a means of exchange and a store of value,” writes Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., in a typical criticism. “As a method of conveying information, written words are inefficient and ambiguous…. Sounds and images are far superior … thus, textual minimalism is replacing books and periodicals.”
However, that “textual minimalism” sure adds up fast — especially considering that a decent percentage of status updates include links to longer blog posts and articles. No matter how you slice it, this San Diego study found text to be a bigger part of our lives than it was 30 years ago, when much of the internet was a mere gleam in Al Gore’s eye.
In addition, longer formats continue to be popular, despite increases in textual minimalism, competing sources of information and the general shrinkage of print magazines and newspapers — see Ars Technica’s 23-page review of Mac OS X 10.6 (1,447 Diggs, 142 on Reddit), or Glenn Greenwald’s lengthy opinion pieces (430 comments), neither of which would likely have been published by a print publication.
Meanwhile, Amazon, which seems to sell everything under the sun — including videogames, cameras and television sets — announced on Saturday that the Amazon Kindle, an eBook reader, became “the most gifted item ever in [Amazon] history” during this year’s holiday season.
The most gifted item during next year’s holiday season could well be Apple’s “iSlate” tablet, assuming rumors of its impending 2010 release are true. Say what you will about the literacy level of tweets or texts, but the position that literacy is on the decline is untenable when the most-hyped device of next year is said to be designed with free and paid-for electronic text — especially magazines — in mind.
If you’re reading thousands of words a day on a variety of devices, paper included, you need as much help as you can get in deciding which words to read. Ironically, the same technologies derided by some for contributing to a lack of literacy — Facebook and Twitter — are full of recommendations of things to read.
Technology may have truncated and warped the written word in some cases, while increasing competition for our time. But as borne out by this new data, technology hasn’t found a substitute for the written word as a means of conveying certain types of information. And, in fact, it has made reading and writing even more essential parts of everyday life.