TWIC: Settling in

I have just moved to Canada and am busy setting up, well, a life here. I have a phone and pick up a car tomorrow... You might not care. Among other things, few private homes have unlimited internet use and I have held back on my surfing habits a little.

The means I want to share a lot of Quora today.
Is technology damaging our creative skills?
Creativity and youth
Creativity: nature or nurture?
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Unusual homes.

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Paul F Tompkins on paying podcast guests.
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Using Storyboard for language practice.
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A nine year old girl's suggestions for New Yorker captions.

TWIC: the ideal length of a song, science journalism and more

Research showing that Wesley Willis was doing the right thing.
  Dang it, I can't find a quote or link, but around the time of Willis' death, discussions of his music lingered over his stubborn insistence that the ideal song was 2:50 long.  In hearing a few of these songs, you note the instrumental solo -the attached autoplay function on the keyboard - extended the songs to the desired length.  Wikipedia is all I got on the guy.
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Kottke looks at discussions of painter Vermeer.  And also, Song exploder.
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I look at a place like Adam Savage's workspace and think, even I could make cool stuff there.
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Boingboing wants you to caption this image of Rick Perry and Barack Obama.
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Spies need good grammar and consistent referencing styles too.
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How to do good science journalism. Recommended by Ed Yong on Twitter.

The Guardian's @james_randerson has written a beginner's guide to science journalism. Yours as an ebook for £2.99. http://t.co/wroBV2hRDM
— Ed Yong (@edyong209) July 14, 2014

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David Foster Wallace speaking about Infinite Jest.
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D&D jump-started their creative careers.

“It’s been a formative narrative media for all sorts of writers,” Diaz said.
The league of ex-gamer writers also includes poet and fiction writer Sherman Alexie; comedian Stephen Colbert; sci-fi and young-adult author Cory Doctorow; Brent Hartinger (author of Geography Club, a novel about gay and bisexual teenagers); George R.R. Martin, author of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series (who still enjoys role-playing games); and “weird fiction” author China Mieville ( The City & the City).
Others who have been influenced include TV and film storytellers and entertainers — Matt Groening ( The Simpsons), Dan Harmon (Community) and Chris Weitz ( American Pie) and Robin Williams among them.