I picked up this book earlier this morning - Jay-Z, Made in America by Michael Eric Dyson . I am clearly very intrigued by Jay-Z’s line of ‘you only have this one chance’ as it's such a powerful line to me. I wanted to understand more on what made him, him.
This is a great book - it was a fast read, I finished it in 1.5 hrs BUT it's not meant to be read fast. I have read many books on musicians and artists but none like this - Michael Eric is an incredible author - it pairs his lyrics to what he was feeling, going through and it just amps you up. I would love to sit in on of Michael’s lecture sessions.
When I have more time, I would read this book again and just immerse myself with the song and lyrics
This book is also a great pick me up if you need a booster - it talks abt Jay-Z’s drive on hustling from where he came from and where he is now, on his love for art and its infusion in his hip hop. His way of protesting brutality is by getting better in life. I really love this thought process.
His thoughts on politics, even his fights and arguments are wrapped up in his lyrics and poetic. This book also covers his relationships with LeBron James, Nipsey, Biggie, Drake, Nas, TuPac, 50 cents and more.
Jay-Z is super tight on his close circle, this is his trusted group. And there is so much uplifting and giving back to society.
I read abt Picasso Baby from this book and it was my first time watching it. He paid his homage to Marina Abromovic and many other great and talented artist - and HOT DAMN - if you want to understand what art in hip hop is, this is it. Jay Z does not write his lyrics down, everything is natural.
This was just an absolutely beautiful performance art
Marina Abromovic's 700 hours was perhaps the greatest performance arts in my opinion - just incredibly powerful. This part gets to me evrytime
i'm sorry you had a difficult childhood and past, and its wonderful how you are turning negative into positive for you and your family's future
Last week would make it the 11th year this sweet fella walked into our lives. Recently he developed problems with his kidneys. Just like humans, problems with kidneys are mostly irreversible. His current reading shows high creatinine at 229.84 umol/L. Target range : 60 - 180 umol/L (micromole per litre) - CKD stage 3. It was 209.26 umol/L last Sep.
I’ve been to the vet 3 times in the past 2 weeks, he is starting to lose appetite again. It could have been the non-stop nasty fireworks that cause hypertension which made his condition worse idk.
He was excited over fish for a while and then got over it. I switched to beef liver, back to chicken. Yesterday he refused anything so I got him toys to make him happy and a butter cupcake - not the ideal choice but at least he ate something. Today I am baking salmon for the both of us.
The doctors also recommended some prescription meds Azodyl to reduce creatinine level and Bextom - ayurveda to reduce kidney infections. Gonna try this for a month and retest his blood. Fingers crossed.
My time is completely stretched, juggling between 2 jobs and trying to keep this boy as happy and healthy as possible, finally with some break time this morning. Hoping he will stick around for a little while longer. I’m not ready
Narcissism is a terrible behavior to have and absolutely exhausting to deal with. Instead of dealing with the actual topic, narcissistic people will find excuses, shift blames, respond with personal attacks, and pick on you.
And before anybody starts pointing towards men and picking on them, women are just the same - I had 3 guy friends who went through divorces last year because their wives were cheating on them and blamed them for it.
And those who put up with narcissism for a long time will develop this extreme defense mechanism which is not good either and they need to allow themselves to heal.
But this morning I realized who is the biggest narcissist of them all - the abusive gov’ts.
They will never try to solve their problems - and blame everyone else - the opposition, the rich, the oil producers, the minorities etc etc etc. Their entire goal is to get you to cling on to them.
While in power, they rarely do what they promised, and will find other reasons to pass the blame. If you question them, there comes the personal attacks, good luck and bye bye.
I guess we all have to figure out how to heal from narcissist governments. Not just getting away from the power they hold on us, but also emotionally and mentally.
(started this morning reading local news. Why - i do not know)
I am looking for some input for my new YouTube channel that teaches shop skills.
https://www.youtube.com/@FabricatorsFieldGuide
What are some basic tool, woodworking, or metal working skills that you have been wanting to learn but you have been to afraid to ask? Or don't know where to go?
It can be something very simple.
Thanks!
#grownostr #asknostr #woodworking #diy #metalworking
this is great, how's your fab lab coming along ?
Recently I learnt that there's a fab lab sensation by prof Neil Gershenfield of MIT Bits and Atom Lab - they go around the world setting up maker spaces. Innovation helps bridge low level tech to high level knowledge - so the idea is to infuse basic makers skills and let creativity go wild. The second thought concept is by another prof Rajesh from MIT on how you enable communities to help themselves by uplifting them. Perhaps this might give you more thoughts and ideas on your lab!
Also, i have a solid wood chest drawer i puchased second hand and refurbished it, but the bottom both side is chipping off. Maybe it went through flood idk. If i were to cut another wood and joint it, would i impact the stability ? i used a wood plaster and extended the bottom with another strong food stand (we have a lot of jati here) but its giving way after a year plus. Its one of those big old chest drawers with solid wood and i got it for under $20
My muslim friends fast from sunrise to sunset without food and water for the entire month (but they eat and drink after sunset and before sunrise). Is this the same for you ?
This is great, it induces autophagy, but not easy - I did it along for 2.5 days (60 hours) , breaking shortly over breakfast. First day was super pumped up and high concentration. I loved it. The 2nd morning was challenging, but it got better after that. But I don’t have your energy or will power to pull through day 3. How was day 3 and what are you breaking your fast with ?
find the orange pilled ones, and everything else will fall into place
find someone who will stand up for you the way Stella stands up for Julian ❤️💔
Nostr is a lot of things - a protocol, a base communication layer, an internet renaissance, a decentralized network, freedom, a large group chat.
I am beginning to think that Nostr is also like your hackerspace - the ones that I read about in the 70s - which led to a huge tech revolution. Nostr is a place where devs, creators, makers, entrepreneurs come together to build.
But i think one of the secret sauce then, and the missing factor here, is reaching out to the diff users they had in mind to grow their innovation / business.
Nostr is independent of each creator but comes with shared resources. I think the biggest benefit is that these diff groups of users by diff dev will compound and provide a large user base for all.
Nostr is a lot of things and that's pretty amazing. What’s Nostr to you ?
nostr:note1k28wlrcr3dmew478qcvhhuzzsng28j5k7e27ka5ltqa2dyr6lm7szvjyuw
I've only had 2 for a long time - yours and primal both have been neat. I am a bit lost in the relay world tbh. Also not all clients have read/write option
good morning! I decided to give the water fast a go, on day 2 now. Have a wonderful and pumped up day!
this is very sweet
I miss the daily reports from nostr:npub19mduaf5569jx9xz555jcx3v06mvktvtpu0zgk47n4lcpjsz43zzqhj6vzk 🥹 It hasn't been the same without that content stream. The daily collection of content truly helped with content discovery.
i didn't realise it stopped publishing, i used to read it too. What happened ?
There’s an interesting story about school children in Kenya.
To provide some historical background, Kenya has ethnic settlers from the 2000 BC Cushitic, Nilotic, and Bantu people among others. Arab traders started their colonies during 1 AD, Portuguese explorers stopped by 15th century. The British colonized Kenya 18th century.
British implemented a divide and conquer ruling (also seen in India, Singapore, Malaysia, Nigeria, Cyprus, Ireland as well) . This created ethnic identities, territorial divisions, which lead to unequal treatment and people were pissed.
The Mau Mau movement rose in the ‘50s , gained independence in ‘63 with Jomo Kenyatta as the first PM.
70s and 80’s phase is completely wild all around the world right - same in Kenya - there’s a very interesting book called North of South that covers this era. But in Kenya, given it was the first time they were independent from the start of time, there were a lot of political struggles which led to a 1-party movement. Eventually in the 90’s it moved to a multiparty democracy and in recent times there has been peace and growth.
Back to the school story - now for the longest time a lot of kids were skipping schools and everyone got worried. They started investing a lot of money into boosting the infrastructure, implementing stricter rules etc but nothing changed.
One fine day, a doctor was visiting a school and noticed the kids had parasite problems and gave them deworming pills and ta da! Problem solved. This eventually became a big thing Kenya deworming the kids.
Sometimes we see symptoms of the problem and we immediately react and try to mitigate it. The actual cause of the problem might be completely something else.