Five things on Friday #59

Things of note for the week ending February 14th, 2014.

hi_human

1. Stunning animals
Wolf Ademeit has a habit of taking amazing photos of our fellow Earth inhabitants and this latest batch is no exception. The above, ‘hi human’ is my favourite, by a long way. But all of them are just beautiful.

2. Treat life like an Experiment
You only get one shot, so why not? Fast Company, on Leo Babauta.

This:

Analysis frequently provides paralysis. Sartre said that man is condemned by his freedom; if you’ve ever stood slack-jawed in a cereal aisle overwhelmed by granola granularity, you’ve tasted that existential quandary. As Babauta notes, we get paralyzed because we’re fretting about making the perfect choice–and worried about making the wrong choice.

It’s a little micro moment of perfectionism. And as psychologist Brené Brown has told us, if perfectionism is driving, then shame is riding shotgun. Why? Because when we make choices, we make ourselves vulnerable to being “wrong,” and since we always need to be right to maintain a sense of self worth, it would be really, really shamefulto select the wrong brand of cereal.

And from Babauta himself, this:

With an experiment, you run a test, and see what the results are. If you don’t get good results, you can try another option, and run another test. Then you can see what the outcomes of the choices are (the info you didn’t have when first thinking about the decision), and can make a better-informed decision now.

Try it, what’s the worst that could happen?

3. LASER-GUIDED MILKY WAY TRACKING
Apologies for the capitals but, seriously, this is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Plus: SCIENCE. Open it in a new window, load it up in HD, then make it full-screen. It just gets better and better…

Via

4. Pinky & The Brain do tongue twisters.
These guys were easily the best thing to come out of The Animaniacs and the writing was nearly always superb [in the show overall]. But man alive, the script team must’ve had a field day with this one. Enjoy –

Oh, and the transcript is available too. Tres awesome.

5. The best Lorde cover EVER [CLOWN KLAXON]
I played this to death towards the end of 2013. But today, on Valentine’s Day, it seems oddly fitting.

See y’all next week.

 

 

Does Twitter need another Ryan Giggs moment?

In the UK at least.

This Google Trend chart goes some way to proving the hunch that I’ve been harbouring for some time that Twitter’s UK growth explosion was kick-started by a Mr Ryan Giggs.

When the front page of every newspaper isn’t allowed to say a certain someone’s name (but can happily point readers online to where its freely available) it’s no wonder that interest in Twitter shot up at this time. Furthermore, given the social network’s recent slowdown in user acquisition, one can’t help wondering if another useless celebrity gagging order is exactly what it needs.

Scandal drives the global gossip engine. Who knew?

 

Five things on Friday #58

Things of note for the week ending February 7th, 2014.

StationtoStationTrainRenderingCDougAitken

1. Station to Station
For three weeks late last year, Doug Aitken took an LED-laden train from New York to San Francisco, making ten stops along the way, as a kind of ‘kinetic sculpture’. At each stop, artists, musicians, writers, film makers and other creatives were asked to contribute to this mobile happening.

Personally, I just love the idea of an LED-lit train (it is a gorgeous image).

More.

2. Banishment Rooms
In Japan, this incredible practice is unbelievably commonplace –

“Shusaku Tani is employed at the Sony plant here, but he doesn’t really work.
.
For more than two years, he has come to a small room, taken a seat and then passed the time reading newspapers, browsing the Web and poring over engineering textbooks from his college days. He files a report on his activities at the end of each day.
.
Sony, Mr. Tani’s employer of 32 years, consigned him to this room because they can’t get rid of him. Sony had eliminated his position at the Sony Sendai Technology Center, which in better times produced magnetic tapes for videos and cassettes. But Mr. Tani, 51, refused to take an early retirement offer from Sony in late 2010 — his prerogative under Japanese labor law.
.
So there he sits in what is called the “chasing-out room.” He spends his days there, with about 40 other holdouts.”

via The New York Times

3. Travel Lessons
This collection of travel advice is pretty invaluable. Having been lucky enough to see more than my fair share of this world already, many of these tips speak to me. Especially the ones about the ability to travel lightly (this is coming from the guy that only took hand luggage on a two week, two festival, three country trip back in the summer of 2013 – not kidding). So yeah, I like this because in the main, this is how I travel.

4. Emptying Gestures
The output of this artist isn’t anything mind-blowing. But how she gets there, to me at least, is pretty mind-blowing. First, look at the work –

2

22

3

But now the killer (emphasis mine):

“Emptying Gestures is an experiment in kinetic drawing. In this series, I am searching for ways to download my movement directly onto paper, emptying gestures from one form to another and creating something new in the process.”

The very idea of ‘downloading movement onto paper’ sparks my mind into all kinds of interesting places. How do you ‘download’ kinetic motion, something intangible, onto paper – and make it tangible? I just love the whole thought behind it.

5. Something creepy to sign you off with
It’s Friday, so why the hell not?

CREEPY

Until next week.

 

 

 

NEW TRAILER: Transformers 4: Age of Extinction

Watch this! Quickly!

It’s just a teaser, admittedly, but…

HOLY BALLS THAT’S OPTIMUS PRIME RIDING ON THE BACK OF GRIMLOCK FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

Optimus Grimlock

WHAT?! I CAN’T EVEN.

…

..and breathe..

I hope they make a hoodie of this new version.
The one I have of the old one rocks my face off.

NEW TRAILER: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Yes yes, I know –

Some of you may remember that I didn’t get on that well with the first take at this reboot (I would argue that my 14 second re-make is much better) BUT this sequel looks promising. That’s Electro, being a bad-ass, Green Goblin (maybe) working with him, and the Rhino (mechanical form) getting a nod too.

If you count Vulture’s wings and Doc Ock’s arms, along with The Lizard from the first TASM, then you’ve got a six sinister bunch of villains right there, if you get my meaning.

Bring it.

the-amazing-spider-man-2-poster

 

NEW TRAILER: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I’m actually well up for this.

  1. I like that this is (or at least seems) a bit more suspenseful.
  2. Nick Fury gets a beating. Oof.
  3. Falcon looks awesome.
  4. I hope The Winter Soldier actually gets some lines.
  5. The above is Trailer 2, but Trailer 1 is one worth a look too.

Not long now…

Captain America

 

Five things on Friday #57

Things of note for the week ending January 31st, 2014.

ROBOT BUILDING IS AWESOME

1. Robot Building: Big, Bold, and Benign
One of my favourite blogs to appear in 2013 was ‘Adam’s Apples’, the blog of design/storytelling agency, FreeState. The image (and title) above is taken from a post exploring the virtues of ‘building as message’. I love the photo but the short, accompanying post is worth a look too.

2. I really like the idea of ‘secondary attention’
That is all.

3. Hope Soap
Washing hands frequently with soap, is the most effective way of preventing the spread of infection and deadly disease. Providing the disadvantaged children of South Africa with free soap is one thing, but how do you get them to use it?

I love this idea. So much.

4. Stop the Cyborgs!
Are you a shop/venue owner? Do you fear the impending onslaught of Google Glass-based surveillance about to come swarming through your door? Is the very thought of your own customers being able to record everything that you do FROM THEIR FACES break you out into cold sweats?

Then you need to get your hands on one of these handy signs!

BAN GOOGLE GLASS

Find out more more about these signs, and this movement in general, over at Stop the Cyborgs. The future of surveillance-free zones may depend on it. Speaking of the future…

5. 2014: Year of the Drone?
They’re cheap, they’re useful, they’re coming –

Drones designed to do the bidding of ordinary people can be bought online for $300 or less. They are often no larger than hubcaps, with tiny propellers that buzz the devices hundreds of feet into the air. But these flying machines are much more sophisticated than your average remote-controlled airplane: They can fly autonomously, find locations via GPS, return home with the push of button, and carry high-definition cameras to record flight.
Besides wedding stunts, personal drones have been used for all kinds of high-minded purposes — helping farmers map their crops, monitoring wildfires in remote areas, locating poachers in Africa. One local drone user is recording his son’s athletic prowess at a bird’s angle, potentially for recruiting videos.

Much more via Tyler Cowan.

 

Until next week.

 

Five things on Friday #56

Things of note for the week ending January 24th, 2014.

supermag

1. Supermag
There are so many things that I love about the picture above I could write a whole other ‘5 things’ post about it. Screw it, I will anyway –

  1. I LOVE the casual way she’s sitting on top of an EFFING RHINO
  2. THE EFFING RHINO (with. handlebars.)
  3. Oh hey, I’ve just got here, do you like my SAMURAI SWORD?
  4. Good pumps.
  5. Dat ink.

Anyway, Supermag is by Jim Rugg, and it is…

“A glossy, magazine-format collection of “narrative collapse.” It showcases his interests in genre, irreverent humor, graphic design, drawing, and typography. SUPERMAG features new work as well as collecting the best of his recent anthology contributions.”

Available at Amazon right now.

*adds to wishlist – scratch that, I now own this.

2. Japanese Thundercats
I don’t really think I have to say anything else really. Just LOOK –

Panthro IS A BADASS.

Sidenote: I really wanted to use the picture of Lion-O but Panthro’s tattoo is so many kinds of awesome it couldn’t be ignored.
Source.

3. The Dawn of Instagram Commerce
Something new I learnt this week: in the Middle East, savvy Kuwaiti retailers are using Instagram as an ad platform to sell them shift sheep. That’s right, sheep.

Sheep Selling on Instagram

This insight, along with several others, comes via this rather awesome Middle East Social Media Trends post from Ema Linaker. I love this kind of stuff. You might too.

4. Miniature Dino Skateboarders are AWESOME
This guy took a bunch of toys, cut them up, and them put them together again to create some wicked hybrids. Oh, and then he took photos of them –

Mini dino skateboarders of win

via

5. Why do we cry on planes?
This this article, from The Atlantic, is pretty spot on – and it’s definitely worth reading the whole thing. However, one quote in particular stood out for me –

When you’re alone, in a situation where you can’t can’t fiddle with your smartphone or turn your anxieties outward toward your social network, the apprehensions and fears of loneliness quickly overtake you. Then you have no choice but to face the fact: you’re a person, in the universe, and you are in some way big or small, alone here. You might cry.

So, y’know – go be alone, and have a cry. You never know, you might need it.

Bonus  thing of the week –
I updated my #EmptyUnderground website a couple of weeks ago, with a fresh batch of photos and a brand new theme and, as a result, it got picked up and featured by It’s Nice That then Time Out London and then Buzzfeed. Amazing.

 

Pebble: two weeks later

Wearable tech: I’m in.

Two weeks ago, in my first of no doubt many Pebblewatch posts, I mentioned that I was still very much in ‘calibration’ mode. Meaning that I was still working out how and what it needed to alert me to the different things going on on my handset.

I’m fully aware that I am very much in calibration mode with this thing at the moment. Each person, each device, and each experience is different. Some people like a lot of alerts, some people don’t.

Slowly but surely I’m working out the hierarchy of what I need and what I don’t (SMS’s? Notify me. Instagram comments and likes? Don’t notify me). And when that process is complete, I think I’m going to enjoy owning this Pebble device very, very much.

That phase is now over (in fairness it was over in less than a week) and I can happily report that my prediction was correct: I am enjoying this Pebble and am fully appreciating the passive content consumption device that the Pebble really is. Almost like a mini personal assistant, it fields incoming alerts from my phone so I don’t have to. I choose when I pick my phone up, not the other way around; Reminding me that the phone is there for MY convenience NOT everyone else’s.

What else is good?

Battery life. This is two fold.

1) The watch battery is pretty impressive. The first week was Thursday through Monday with a whole ton of ‘look at me, look at my cool watch’ usage. Week two lasted a little longer and, given that I’m used to charging most of my devices once every 24hrs (moreso in some instances), having a charge-life last more than three times that is somewhat of a useful novelty.

2) Here’s the biggie: if there’s one thing that mobile geeks want, nay, that ALL MODERN CONSUMERS want, it’s more battery life. When I initially thought about getting a smartwatch, all I could think about was that precious battery life that having a permanent / all day bluetooth connection would suck up. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Because I use my phone less, the battery lasts longer. Bluetooth use included. I could go into more detail, but Iain’s post on the subject covers it quite well (scroll down to ‘Power’).

I’ve already mentioned that Pebble plays nice with my audio apps (Spotify and DoggCatcher) and my fitness app (RunKeeper), so that’s ace and, if I’m honest, I’ve not really got around to tinkering too much with either v2 of the firmware or myriad apps that are available. There’s a weird dichotomy about the whole thing: having a new piece of technology often means there’s more that I can do, but that seems to be the complete opposite of what this device was made for.

I spend less time looking at my phone today, than I ever have before. And to my mind, that can only be a good thing.

Thank you, Pebble, for freeing me from the shackles of my device. You rock.

_____________

FAQs:

1. Why do I need another notification device?
You don’t. Pebble isn’t that. When I wear my Pebble, I actually switch the ringer and vibrate off on the handset. In fact, between Pebble and MightyText for Chrome, the phone hardly ever leaves my pocket.

2. Will I like the design/plastic feel/strap?
The strap can be changed, and Pebble Steel is looking great.

3. Do I need a Pebble?
I don’t know about you. All I can say is: Pebble has changed the way I interact with my device for the better. I treat messages as urgently as I want to, and I decide when and how I communicate. This slight shift in behaviour is solely down to wearing Pebble. If you think you use your phone too much, then get Pebble.

Any other questions? Leave them in the comments and I’ll reply as best I can.

_____________

In the UK? Pebble is £139.99 and available from Amazon.
US readers prices vary.