A new direction

I've been thinking hard about this blog, it's purpose and utility for me and for any who follow or just randomly pass by. I'm sure I want to keep a blog, there's a lot of stuff out there I like to share and/or talk about. On the other hand, I have little time to concentrate in order to provide well thought and written posts frequently enough. Of late, I have been considering other themes to talk about, like politics, not only international but also Portuguese internal issues and for that matter, I'll probably start writing in Portuguese. 

Alas, from all the mumbo-jumbo that's been going on in my mind, an idea has stepped out as the only option to keep the blog alive and that's what I'll try working on. There is no better way to show where I want to go with all this than to share Dan Pink's TED talk, on the "surprising science of motivation".

I need my blog to be a space where I let my internal motivation fly, see where it goes and feel free to go back or move on just because I want to or need to, because I can. Maybe that will help me keep working on the blog as long as possible.

From this post forward, this blog will have posts in English, others in Portuguese and might even have some with translations, and I won't be doing regular reviews of all the books I read any more but mostly simple comments with the main ideas I get from some of them, so that I have time to share other stuff and talk about what comes to mind as interesting enough as time goes by. Another thing you'd notice is that I dropped the ranking when reviewing films or books all together, I don't feel the numbers are fair to them and they usually don't really add much to what I want to say. I'm about to buy a camera so expect to see some of my attempts to do anything interesting with it as I learn. It does seem a bit pretentious but I believe this will make Omnilogikos more accessible for those it might be of interest, each post for itself, and those who can only understand one of the languages can always ignore the other posts completely.
I changed the blog's appearance and don't feel like going back and correcting all the consequent formatting errors so bear with me on that if you are going to check previous posts. Still not sure if I'm going to keep the actual template and colour theme.


And now, to try all this and see what happens.

Two very interesting ideas

I've been absent and even considering abandoning the blog altogether because I don't feel I can dedicate enough time to it. I can no longer follow the blogs I used to and I definitely can't write the book reviews that fueled this. In spite of all this, when I listened to these talks I felt an urge to come here and share them. They convey some concepts worth attention and, I hope, thought-provoking enough to change some views.

Gaming to re-engage boys in learning


Gaming can make a better world

I've been thinking about coming back to the blog just to share information and opinions and write small comments about what I read and watch. We'll see how it goes.

José Saramago, The Grapes of Wrath, Doctor Who and more stuff

José Saramago, the world famous Portuguese writer and Nobel Prize winner died two days ago, at the age of 87. He was a very controversial figure in Portugal, admired for his books but not so much for some of his political and religious views. After his book O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo (The Gospel According to Jesus Christ) wasn't allowed to compete for the European Literary Award by a very conservative Portuguese government, he decided to leave the country and went to live in Lanzarote in the Spanish Canaries. In spite of these events, another of his works, Memorial do Convento (Baltasar and Blimunda) one considered by some his masterpiece, became part of the Portuguese Language study program in highschool. I have tried to read the novel but his writing style with little respect for rules and its subject had me give it up. I have plans to read something from Saramago, especially Ensaio sobre a Cegueira (Blindness), Ensaio sobre a Lucidez (Seeing) and O Ano da  Morte de Ricardo Reis (The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis), but I don't know if I'll ever be able to retry the one I gave up on, I usually don't. 

Although I can't give a substantiated opinion on the writer, I can still say that I agreed with some of his views on how the Portuguese people seems resigned and with some of his anti-catholic opinions. I must emphasize he disagreed with the Catholic Church having the one and only accepted interpretation of the Bible and I like the idea that as a book written and organized by people, limiting it's understanding to what one group with a very specific agenda say seems quite senseless.


With all that said, I am currently reading and enjoying The Grapes of Wrath and I won't be over soon. I can advance that I have read there some of the best book chapters I've ever put my eyes on. Before and even while reading it, I've finished reading some other books that deserved their own reviews here, ones that I couldn't elaborate for lack of time. I hereby leave a honourable mention to Mighty Avengers: The Unspoken Premiere HC, Serenity Vol.1; Those Left Behind and As Incríveis Aventuras de Dog Mendonça e PizzaBoy.

I'm also following George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, have now read the first two books, here in Portugal translated into four volumes: A Guerra dos Tronos, A Muralha de Gelo, A Fúria dos Reis e O Despertar da Magia. The part I preferred was the end of The Game of Trones, it left me baffled and I felt like running to a bookshop and buy all the other books, which I ended up doing and I am now excited about the TV series being produced at the moment.

One other subject I want to speak about eventually is Doctor Who. It was presented to me by a friend who told me his favourite episodes of the previous series. I enjoyed them so much that I am now following the series with 11Th Doctor. My favourite episodes of the David Tennant era were Blink, Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead (yes, Steven Moffat) and I would recommend watching them to anyone even if not following the series, they are worthy on their own. Matt Smith is taking over quite well, helping create a new image and personality while not severing ties with what fans have seen of the Doctor all these years. Expect more comments from me on this.

Random Stuff

First of all, I'm happy to share Felicia Day's news on Facebook yesterday:

PREVIEW: Felicia Day Brings ‘The Guild’ To Comics 

As a fan of the series, I know I'll end up buying the comics for sure, further increasing my to-read book list.

I also felt like showing a video from Penguin's YouTube channel, originally prepared by the UK branch of Dorling Kindersley Books on the future of publishing: 

And now another video, this one I learned about at Pharyngula, and I almost "rolled on the floor laughing" when I first saw it:

Will be checking NonStampCollector's YouTube channel later!

New blogs and new books

While surfing the web earlier today, I came across 2 blogs I plan on following hereafter.

One of them is Pharyngula, a science blog consisting of "evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal" as stated by the author, PZ Myers, a biologist, associate professor and a "militant atheist". The first post I read, Sunday Sacrilege: It rhymes with reflex, convinced me to keep an eye on the blog and to share it in my own. I seem to have some views in common with him, but he does look much more assertive than me (and perhaps even radical) defending those views. But even though he may have a somewhat radical speech, it still amazes and disgusts me that people send him porn by mail trying to offend him.

The other one, Thoughts Arguments and Rants, I'll have more to say after I read for a while longer. I have already downloaded his paper/post on Easy Knowledge and Other Epistemic Virtues and plan to read it this week.

I have also ordered a 18 of books from Amazon.co.uk, 12 of them for myself, from Marvel comics to Seven Days in the Art World, Utilitarianism by Mill and Bentham and even The Book With No Name.

For now, I'm reading and really liking a Portuguese translation of Camus' The Outsider.

Introduction

Hello!

I decided to start this to post some ideas, opinions and mainly to talk about any subject I consider interesting enough. I don't want to create a strict purpose for the blog. My initial idea is to write book and film reviews, share some things I find on the internet as for example other blogs, videos, photos or music and I might even comment on my travelling experiences, if I find anything captivating.

Feel free to comment, talk about the same subjects or bring up some stuff related to what I posted.

Thanks for reading.