bookmark_borderWeekend Reading

I start my new job in a week or so, not sure if that means the number of links in these posts will increase or decrease, part of me is interested to see what happens, part of me isn’t bothered, and part of me wonders why I’m telling you this.

  • People who worry incessantly about failure could be better off than those who don’t
    For everyone who’s ever been told that they worry too much—here’s some deeply satisfying news for you. Worrying may be a good thing.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1HtzBhJ
    I’m worried how much time I’m spending compiling these posts, that’s a good thing, right?
  • Meet one of the world’s most groundbreaking scientists
    As the dish of steamed chicken feet clattered onto the table, an impish toddler drummed with her chop sticks. Nobody in the noisy restaurant in Boston’s Chinatown gave a second glance at the man dressed in a polo shirt and jeans enjoying dim sum with his little girl, wife, and mother.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1SvUhfg
  • Why Nick Hornby is Turning Other People’s Books Into Movies Instead of Writing His Own
    The High Fidelity writer finds making movies, like Brooklyn, more satisfying than spending years alone in a room writing a book. Nick Hornby is a culture hero. His 1990s novels High Fidelity and About a Boy were era-defining bestsellers that became cult-adored films.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1L6SKGm
  • What It’s Really Like To ‘Walk’ In Space
    Astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren left the International Space Station on Friday for their second spacewalk in less than two weeks. Their assignment was to configure a vent door on the port side ammonia tank.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1kDuE0q
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    Read: http://ift.tt/1kIzOs7
  • Unmasked! The Mexico City superhero wrestling for pedestrians’ rights
    The traffic light turns red at the corner of Avenida Juárez and Eje Central, the busiest pedestrian crossing in Mexico City, used by around 9,000 people every hour. Tonight, a driver stops his grey Peugeot exactly on the crossing where the masses are trying to pass.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1XYttr6
  • David Mitchell: separating literary and genre fiction is act of ‘self-mutilation’
    Author David Mitchell has let loose the latest salvo in the perennial “literary vs genre” war by saying that those who dismiss fantasy and science fiction are committing a “bizarre act of self-mutilation”. Mitchell is one of the handful of authors with a foot in both camps.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1iPTRDQ
  • How U.S. Drinking Laws Created the Fake ID Market
    Detail of a hologram on a German ID card. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons) True story—a couple weeks ago, a restaurant attempted to deny me service because they thought I had a fake ID.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1HFvQWt
  • Exit Interview: I Spent 20 Years Behind the Wheel of a Big Rig
    Long-haul trucking isn’t the sort of job where you can go to work, space out, and come home at night. Driving a truck means living a different type of day-to-day existence, roaming far and wide, sleeping on the road and, sometimes, exploring places that you’d never have gone otherwise.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1MnFen0
  • Cephalopod Science is Even Weirder and More Mysterious Than You Imagined
    This cute little guy may be the future of medicinal technology. (Courtesy of Joshua Rosenthal/Used with Permission)
    Read: http://ift.tt/1RBIOdr
  • Bob Dylan and the “Hot Hand”
    For decades, there’s been a running academic debate about the question of “the hot hand”—the notion, in basketball, say, that a player has a statistically better chance of scoring from downtown if he’s been shooting that night with unusual accuracy.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1XZUKcH
  • Sony is finally killing Betamax
    Of all Sony’s failed proprietary formats, Betamax has to be the most iconic — the videotape format’s eventual vanquishment by VHS set the stage for countless media wars down the subsequent decades. It is probably news to you, then, that Beta cassettes are still a thing you can buy.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1HsIihn
  • Shia LaBeouf Launches Bizarre Public Performance Art Piece
    Shia LaBeouf is now an art installation, open to the general public. Following his head-scratching red-carpet appearance at the Berlin Film Festival where he sported a paper bag on his head, the Nymphomaniac star is setting up shop for one week at a gallery on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1bT23g5
  • David Cameron hasn’t the faintest idea how deep his cuts go. This letter proves it
    It’s like the crucial moment in Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American. The US agent stares at the blood on his shoes, unable to make the connection between the explosion he commissioned and the bodies scattered across the public square in Saigon.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1GWAmoN
  • BlackBerry Priv Review: BlackBerry May Win You Back With Android
    I don’t know anyone who owns a BlackBerry anymore. Not a single person. Had BlackBerry’s new Priv been released five years ago, things could be different. I’d own one. You’d own one. Obviously bankers, lawyers and salespeople would have them.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1Q7OzSy
  • Worth the Risk?
    IN THE MONTHS AFTER HER SIXTH CHILD WAS BORN, Amy Reed didn’t bounce back the way she had in the past. She continued to bleed, heavily, to the point where she had to plan her days around it. She became anemic and even climbing stairs was difficult.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1RNxLxV
  • Caged: What Drives Ronda Rousey to Wake Up and Fight
    “When are we going to see women in the UFC, dude?” – TMZ cameraman”Never.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1QsVDZf
  • When People Say ‘You Look Tired’
    I don’t know if there’s ever a day I don’t hear that phrase at least once. Sometimes I hear it multiple times a day. You look tired. It used to offend me, but now I just respond with one simple answer: “I am tired.” You see, I don’t just look tired, I am tired.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1PEj1C4
  • The Asteroid Hunters
    On August 18, 2015, an otherwise unexceptional summer Tuesday, NASA issued a press release titled “There is No Asteroid Threatening Earth.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1kNwXOL
  • This is about the time I chose not to die. — Medium
    I’ve waited two years to write this story. I also waited until the people surrounding me now have a good sense of what a healthy me is like. And for myself, I needed to wait until I was sure I had both some distance and some victories under my belt.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1MEDk1A
  • Why Psychopaths Are Immune to Contagious Yawning
    You are sitting at home, watching TV. You yawn. Your partner tries to resist, but can’t, and soon he or she yawns, too. It’s not just in your head: Yawning is contagious, not just in humans but in many species. It’s even contagious between us and our dogs.
    Read: http://ift.tt/20GvHxv
    Luther was right!
  • “People I Want To Punch In The Face” Notebook
    There’s nothing like a pocket-sized notebook to keep track of what really matters. With Rude Notebook’s handmade “People I Want To Punch In The Face” journal, it’s really all in the name.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1MojreZ
  • TIME Magazine Charleston Shooting Cover Story
    On the night of June 17, a gunman opened fire in a church basement in Charleston. Nine people died. Five survived. Survivors and families tell their stories of faith and forgiveness He did not kiss her goodbye that day.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1RQGvmS
  • Charlie Brown Never Found His Little Red-Haired Girl, but We Did
    Donna Johnson Wold’s hair, which was once, in her own words, “violently red,” has long since faded to the white you’d expect of an 86-year-old grandmother.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1Mga9OO
  • The Second Most Famous Thing to Happen to Hiroshima
    It starts with a thwack, the sharp crack of hard plastic against a hot metal surface. When the ladle rolls over, it deposits a pale-yellow puddle of batter onto the griddle. A gentle sizzle, as the back of the ladle spackles a mixture of eggs, flour, water, and milk across the silver surface.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1jNSS8y
  • Non-Binary Feminism: The personal is still political
    Content Note: There’s mention in this article of the heated debates around feminism and trans, of societal gender inequalities, and of gender-related bullying in schools. I’m using non-binary and genderqueer interchangeably here to mean genders outside of the male/female binary.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1WQrLep

bookmark_borderWeekend Reading

I’m realising the links I’m choosing for these posts are rapidly forming a pretty good picture of my interests, this week is no different.

  • Why The Machines That Dig Tunnels Are Always Named After Women
    Tunnel Boring Machines, or TBMs, are some of the most fascinating manufacturers of our infrastructure: Two-ton primary-colored cylinders with jagged teeth that chomp through the Earth. And every single one of them has a traditionally female name.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1PXmOv0
  • Siri and Cortana Sound Like Ladies Because of Sexism
    Ask Siri if she’s a woman. Go ahead, try it. She’ll tell you she’s genderless. “Like cacti. And certain species of fish,” she might say. So is Amazon’s Alexa. Microsoft’s Cortana. Samsung’s S Voice. And Google Now. But man, do they ever sound a lot like women.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1Wi9SPS
  • The Outcast
    Greg Torti awakes in darkness, usually before four. Any little sound will do it. A dog barking down the street. A rabbit bumping against the trailer. An armadillo rooting for grub worms. The wind.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1LP3oXg
  • One Day at Panda Express
    On a bright day in the flats of San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles, the busiest restaurant around is a Panda Express tucked into a shopping center dominated by a Walmart.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1N7ZhXo
  • Stand Brave, Life-Liver: An Interview With Joanna Newsom
    The musician on her new album Divers, abandoning the classical idea of “good singing,” and admiring Grimes.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1kIYK2U
  • Mark Thomas interview: The social-activist comedian talks opera, charity shops, and Nicholas Soames
    I want to have as much fun and create as much chaos as I can The mixture of theatre, journalism, activism and stand-up I do is about finding ways to complain about social injustice – whether it’s a punk gig on the banks of the Thames or getting hold of ladders to change the letters round on a cinema sign
    Read: http://ift.tt/1N28Brt
  • Customs, Not Costumes: Why I Wear the Local Attire While Traveling
    Last month, during our UK weXplore, I took fourteen students to get fitted for kilts at the Highland House of Fraser in Inverness, Scotland.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1XFsUCy
  • Bloggers Are Being Murdered In Bangladesh And It Is Shaking The Country’s Secular Foundation
    DHAKA, Bangladesh — Sitting outside a tea shop in Dhaka on a recent evening, Baki Billah, a soft-spoken 36-year-old blogger, glanced from table to table to see if anyone was watching him. “Most of the time now, I stay at home,” he said.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1GRn24N
  • 20 Little-Known Facts About Being Left-Handed
    With just 10% of the population being left-handed, it can be easy for everyone else to forget we’re living in a right-handed world.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1MoarC4
  • Londoners Are Using Chalk to Save Their Sidewalks from Discarded Chewing Gum
    The Chewing Gum Action Group (CGAG) has had enough. The organization says discarded gum removed last year from London’s well-trafficked Oxford, Regent, and Bond Streets amounted to 86,000 square meters of guck.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1GZiWYb
  • The Mother of All Questions, by Rebecca Solnit
    I gave a talk on Virginia Woolf a few years ago. During the question-and-answer period that followed it, the subject that seemed to most interest a number of people was whether Woolf should have had children.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1V9QJz1
  • Forget Nirvana, Pearl Jam Was the Most Influential Band of the 90s
    A few years ago, I interviewed Tom Delonge at an Angels & Airwaves show. He made sure to tell me about how he has always drawn his influence from the 70s’ mod scene, the band The Jam, and the esoteric symbolism surrounding the occult. He really said this.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1KUyUxY
  • In October alone, 218,394 refugees and migrants arrived in Europe by sea
    The number of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean this year broke another staggering record: Roughly the same number of people arrived in the month of October as in all of 2014, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR).
    Read: http://ift.tt/1kmtkz4
  • Indonesia is burning. So why is the world looking away?
    I’ve often wondered how the media would respond when eco-apocalypse struck. I pictured the news programmes producing brief, sensational reports, while failing to explain why it was happening or how it might be stopped.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1PY7YEl
  • Tom Jones Will Take DNA Test to Find Out if He’s Black
    What’s new pussycat? Oh, just maybe the singer’s race Well, this is a bit unusual, admittedly.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1RJS139
  • Pantone: How the world authority on color became a pop culture icon
    Colors are tricky. If you’ve ever brought home a can of paint that you thought was taupe in the store but your partner points out looks “kinda pink” on the wall, you know how frustrating—and unreliable—color perception can be.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1WrJnwX
  • 6 Ways Work Will Change In 2016
    Most major workplace trends don’t evolve overnight, and if you know where to look, you can already witness their approach. Many of the trends that will come into focus in 2016 already exist today, but their significance is expected to grow and become mainstream in the year to come.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1RtoXx3
  • Is It Harmful to Use Music as a Coping Mechanism?
    Listening to music is a form of emotional self-care that many of us turn to every day, without much conscious thought.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1PgCYyQ
  • London’s Plague Pits Map Shows Where the Black Death Got Buried
    There was no time for proper funerals during the Great Plague of the 1660s. (Image: Detail from painting by Rita Greer/Wikipedia) Subterranean London is a crowded space.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1km8aAT
  • Alameda Spite House
    A spite fence is a fairly common occurrence, but a spite house? Now that takes dedication. Houses (and fences) of spite are built when a land owner has the time, money, and just the right amount of malice to use construction as a weapon.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1qXZ5xW
  • Landmark Reunion for Mastermind Box Models
    A businessman and a University of Leicester student who were brought together 30 years ago as the mysterious figures for the box on the revolutionary new game Mastermind, have been reunited for the first time since that historic day.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1PlKUyE
  • After the Snowden Revelations, Did We Change Our Behavior on the Internet?
    These quotes are from a video montage of man-on-the-street interviews John Oliver made Edward Snowden watch, when Oliver interviewed him in April, 2015.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1iBpzVa
  • Guinness Tweaking Its 256-Year-Old Brewing Process So Vegans Can Enjoy A Pint, Too
    It must be tough out there sometimes for a vegan or a vegetarian — your meat-eating friends can’t talk about anything but bacon, and waiters never know if there’s cream in the soup or if the potatoes are fried in lard, etc.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1iFfwyt
  • Edith Garrud and the Jiu Jitsu of the Suffragette Movement
    Officially, Edith Garrud is not a character in the forthcoming film about the British suffragette movement named, appropriately, Suffragette. But the activist, self-defense proponent and trainer of Emmeline Pankhurst’s 25-woman strong Bodyguard collective is certainly there in spirit.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1kcDClG
  • Investigatory Powers Bill: what’s in it, and what does it mean?
    May said that “communication records up to 12 months” will have to be stored by internet and communications service providers. This means the individual webpage — “just the front page of the websites,” in May’s words — will be kept.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1HqQZDw
  • Adele: Inside Her Private Life and Triumphant Return
    As Adele steers through a South London high street in her four-door Mini Cooper, with her toddler’s vacant car seat in back and the remains of a kale, cucumber and almond-milk concoction in the cup holder, a question occurs to her.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1Ol97GS
  • Binge-Watching Guide: The James Bond Movies
    Not many international secret agents have a cinematic shelf life of 52 years. Actually, there’s only one: Bond … James Bond.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1NbCUfb
  • Quentin Tarantino on police boycotts: ‘I’m not being intimidated’
    Under increasing fire from law enforcement groups, director Quentin Tarantino broke his silence Tuesday and said his remarks condemning police brutality had been misrepresented to “demonize” him and deflect attention away from the issue.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1Pk7SGs
  • Hello, I’m Mr. Null. My Name Makes Me Invisible to Computers
    Pretty much every name offers some possibility for being turned into a schoolyard taunt. But even though I’m an adult who left the schoolyard decades ago, my name still inspires giggles among the technologically minded. My last name is “Null,” and it comes preloaded with entertainment value.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1KYZJBd
  • Science Tackles Very Important Question: What’s The Best Cheese For A Gooey Grilled Cheese Sandwich?
    There are some things we don’t need scientists to tell us — like the fact that cheese is delicious and was created by the dairy gods to please us — but there are other questions we need answered by the professionals in order to live our best lives.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1WAaWi8
  • Thrilling Video of Two Men With Jet Packs Flying in Formation With an Emirates Airbus A380 Over Dubai
    Jetman Yves Rossy and Vince Reffet from Jetman Dubai use their jet packs to fly in formation with an Emirates Airbus A380 over Dubai in a thrilling new video. A separate video details the thorough planning that had to go into the flight to make sure it was done safely for all those involved.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1RZIt3X

bookmark_borderSmall pleasures

Those of know me will know of my tendency to research things before I buy them. A lot of the items I use most often have been bought online after a lot of comparison and pondering, and it’s fair to say that not all of them have been a success; a lot of near misses but enough successes to keep me happy.

Two items in particular stand out. One I’ve had for a while now, the other a recently new addition, but both hit the mark when it comes to my criteria:

  1. I am reasonably price conscious but not overly so, I’ll happily pay to get exactly what I want.
  2. The items have to be of good quality.

That’s about it really. Nothing startling there.

I’m also a big fan of minimising clutter. It goes with my love of Scandinavian and Japanese design movements. I like clean lines, simple function in harmony with good features.

I use both of these items everyday and I thought I’d mention them here, given that we are approaching a certain holiday season and I think they could make good gifts for someone.

My wallet

I’d been searching for a minimal wallet for a long time. I found the Supr Slim wallet (originally on Kickstarter) but it was a little TOO minimal for me; it only has one pocket.

Not long after that, again on Kickstarter, I found Trove Wallets.

Trove Wallet

In my wallet I have my Glasgow Subway travel card, Bank card, Driving Licence, Credit, Cineworld, Nectar and Tesco Club cards. Notes get folded in thirds and take up the last available space. I’ve had this for a while now and every now and then someone will comment on it; ‘That’s your wallet?’ ‘That’s really neat’.

Yes it is. That’s the appeal. I was sick of lugging the typical multi-pocketed fold wallet that I’d have most of my adult life and, for me, sacrificing a few seldom used cards was well worth it.

My keyring

God how I hate keys, especially when set on a keyring. All those angles and pointy bits, ugh. I’ve tried many different solutions in the past but they all have the same issue. Bulk.

And then I found Orbitkey.

Orbitkey

Aside from my car key, I have keys for front and back doors to the building, my letterbox and my front door. Held together with a simple screw fitting, the clever sprung washers allow the keys to rotate (the screw itself will click into a tiny notch on the mounting plate to keep it still).

Simple, effective, minimal. Brilliant.

Note: I have not been paid to endorse these products, I’m doing so because I love mine and every time I pick them up and use them, they make me happy. Hey, it’s the little things, right?

Ohhh and no doubt that the basic principles that both the above products rely on have been used elsewhere but for these I can attest to the quality of them, they are both well worth the money.

bookmark_borderWeekend Reading

Been hard to avoid Halloween articles this week but I’ve done my best!

  • How Friendships Change in Adulthood
    In the hierarchy of relationships, friendships are at the bottom. Romantic partners, parents, children—all these come first. This is true in life, and in science, where relationship research tends to focus on couples and families.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1KqlqK5
  • Why Working Form Home Can Be Both Awesome and Awful
    For over a year, I worked almost exclusively from my tiny apartment in Harlem. Aside from trips into an office every six weeks or so, my work schedule and surroundings were mostly left up to me. On some days, I would fly through assignments and personal tasks with unusual efficiency.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1PKHlm8
  • The best way to boil an egg, according to science
    Boiling an egg seems like it should be one of the easiest culinary feats to master. But as anyone who has tried knows, it isn’t. You can end up with rubbery whites, chalky yolks or half the white taken off with the shell. Here’s why: An egg isn’t one thing, it’s two.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1RqejXn
  • Terry Gross and the Art of Opening Up
    On a late-summer morning, Terry Gross sat before a computer in her office — a boxy, glass-fronted room at WHYY in Philadelphia — composing interview questions.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1NncTMK
  • What Happened to the Boy Who Accidentally Shot His Sister Dead
    Sean Smith today. “For a long time, I was self-destructive in every way imaginable.” (David Albers for The Trace) Sean Smith was looking for the Nintendo games his mother had hidden when he found a .38 revolver in his father’s underwear drawer.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1PtmLHT
  • How Friendships Change in Adulthood
    In the hierarchy of relationships, friendships are at the bottom. Romantic partners, parents, children—all these come first. This is true in life, and in science, where relationship research tends to focus on couples and families.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1KqlqK5
  • Question – Does being self-deprecating help or harm you socially?
    Hopes&Fears answers questions with the help of people who know what they’re talking about. Today, we ask psychologists and communication experts if making fun of ourselves makes us look bad.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1hV9VUi
  • Saul Bass On His Approach To Designing Movie Title Sequences
    Graphic designer and Oscar-winning director Saul Bass worked with some of the most creative filmmakers in Hollywood to set the tone for their work through his unique title sequences for films ranging from Psycho to Goodfellas.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1jDRrJQ
  • View from the Overlook: Crafting ‘The Shining’
    From 2007, a 30-minute documentary on the making of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Includes interviews with Jack Nicholson, Steven Spielberg, and Sydney Pollack.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1i9N4UW
  • Why so many alien hunters are looking at this one mysterious star in the sky
    Alien hunters are abuzz. A mysterious star called KIC 8462852 is their latest hope for finding an intelligent species beyond the Earth. And they are throwing every resource they can to find a way of confirming that aliens exist.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1jKs7lm
  • Greenland Is Melting Away
    On the Greenland Ice Sheet — The midnight sun still gleamed at 1 a.m. across the brilliant expanse of the Greenland ice sheet.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1NxKgfR
  • Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill
    When it comes to automotive technology, self-driving cars are all the rage.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1RYqifI
  • Europe’s Time Zones and Daylight Saving Systems Are a Total Mess
    Is it summertime or wintertime? Since Sunday, no one in Turkey has been entirely sure. Following a decree originating from the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s government has officially delayed the start of daylight saving by two weeks.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1P4KsF8
  • Inside Apple’s perfectionism machine
    In retrospect, it was easy to miss — a bit of combined technology never really seen before in a laptop. Everyone missed it, even those who tore down the ultra-portable MacBook, even those who looked right at it.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1O9lOEL
  • Scotland’s Plastic Bag Ban Saved 650 Million Bags In Its First Year
    Just eight cents a bag and suddenly no one wants one. One year ago, Scotland started charging five pence for plastic grocery bags. In the following year, 650 million fewer bags have been used, an 80% reduction. Before the ban on free carrier bags, as they’re called over there…
    Read: http://ift.tt/1He1vxR
  • Nepal Just Got Its First Female President
    Nepal made history on Wednesday, electing a woman to become the country’s first female head of state. Bidhya Devi Bhandari, from the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), received 327 votes of the total 541 ballots cast in Nepal’s parliament.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1Sbyp8L
  • Question – Are humans meant to be monogamous?
    Hopes&Fears answers questions with the help of people who know what they’re talking about. Today, we ask psychology, biology, and sexuality experts whether humans are wired to stay together.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1KFTKkG
  • The End of Craft Beer
    Read: http://ift.tt/1M3y9b0
  • The Broken Pop of James Bond Songs
    Our latest Exclusive is by Adrian Daub and Charles Kronengold, who recently co-authored The James Bond Songs: Pop Anthems of Late Capitalism (Oxford University Press), a cultural history of the Bond-song canon.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1Oa22c7
  • In Which We’re Up All Night – Home – This Recording
    It is impossible to describe insomnia to people who are sound sleepers. These are the people who trust that getting in bed will be followed by falling asleep, as surely as night follows day; these are the fearless people. Sleepless people are a very different breed.
    Read: http://ift.tt/PcGJrU
  • How Sitting Is Harming Your Body and What You Can Do to Counter Its Perils
    More than a century after Thoreau’s magnificent manifesto for the rewards of walking and the evils of sitting, we have finally put data around the all too obvious fact that the human body, a marvelous machine animated by motion, is not meant for extended stillness.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1XvjhpY
  • What does Scotland do after the stabbing at Cults academy?
    The fatal stabbing of a teenager at Aberdeen’s Cults academy, in an area of the city not known for gang violence or knife crime, has inevitably led to suggestions that school security should be tightened.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1Ri1s9S

bookmark_borderHitchrick and the new job

I’ve spent the last few hours filling in forms, lots of forms, repeating the same information over and over. But I don’t mind because it’s because I’ll soon be starting a new job.

The paperwork is a little more involved because I’m making the move from a permanent salaried role (which is all I’ve ever known) to a contract. That means I need to think about things like hiring an accountant, setting up my own limited company, getting a business bank account and lots of other fun things that require a lot of reading.

I’m excited though, not just because I’ll be getting back to work but because this is something I’ve considered in the past but never really had the courage to make the leap. Turns out being made redundant was just the kick I needed!

I have chosen my new company name, and just off the phone with my new accountant who will take care of a lot of the paperwork for me – I was pondering tackling it all myself but I think I’ll give it a year or so before I head down that path.

For now, I just need to finish a few more forms, confirm my start date and start figuring out my new commute which, when the weather allows, will see my cycling to work. Win win!

Another reason for me to be glad about getting this contract is not only professional – I’ll be doing Business Analysis for a bank – but stems more from my state of mind. There is no doubt that not working has a negative effect on me, and not just the money worries. I like to be busy, but no matter how I tried, I found filling my days with non-creative and non-contributory actions just wasn’t enough for me.

I’ve been out of work, officially, since the end of July, that’s 3 months when I could’ve learned a new language, or tried a new activity. But I didn’t, because whilst I always want to be better for me, I’ve realised that what I really need is to have something to contribute to that is beyond me. At least, I think that’s what it is… still trying to figure that bit out.

Regardless, I’ve got a new job! Huzzah!!

bookmark_borderWeekend Reading

Some cracking reads this week, some quite dark, some wonderfully uplifting and the usual nonsense in-between.

  • The Doctor
    As the sun set on a Saturday in early February, Mubarak Angalo, a farmer in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, was riding in a pickup truck with two friends. They had spent the day at a market, selling vegetables, and were returning to their village when they heard a low droning sound overhead.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1QoHWZ9
  • Out of the Darkness — Accountability for Torture — Medium
    THE CIA USED the music of an Irish boyband called Westlife to torture Suleiman Abdullah in Afghanistan. His interrogators would intersperse a syrupy song called “My Love” with heavy metal, played on repeat at ear-splitting volume.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1KeFwHa
  • Mr. Pop
    Excerpted from The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook. Out now from WW Norton & Company. One day in 1992, a demo tape addressed to Denniz Pop, a 28-year-old DJ, arrived at a Stockholm-based music company called SweMix.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1LLnn4X
  • Patti Smith on Time, Transformation, and How the Radiance of Love Redeems the Rupture of Loss
    That transcendent transience is what beloved musician, artist, and poet Patti Smith explores in M Train (public library) — a most unusual and breathtaking book: part memoir, part dreamscape, part elegy for the departed and for time itself.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1LZQyHE
  • The Story Behind Bob Beamon’s Miracle Jump And The Only Photo That Mattered
    The man who took one of the most famous photos in Olympic history wasn’t a professional photographer.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1LoG2UJ
  • The death and life of the great British pub
    The Murphy family, John, Mary and their adult son Dave, were preparing to spend a 33rd Christmas as landlords of the Golden Lion pub in Camden, north London when they heard the rumours.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1jlnkqm
  • Of Hegemonic Hoverboards and the Power of Power-Laces: Living in Back to the Future II’s 2015
    As Marty McFly walked out of the alleyway and into the town square, he was distracted not by the flying cars whizzing by high above but by a robotic Texaco attendant. Then he was attacked by a holographic shark.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1jEs4Hc
  • Becoming Nicole
    They were identical twin boys, Wyatt and Jonas Maines, adopted at birth in 1997 by middle-class, conservative parents. Healthy and happy, they were physically indistinguishable from each other, but even as infants their personalities seemed to diverge.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1QNI6Jy
  • How an F Student Became America’s Most Prolific Inventor
    “It’s really a one-person sort of vehicle,” says Lowell Wood, right after he offers me a lift back to my hotel. His brown 1996 Toyota 4Runner, parked outside his office building in Bellevue, Washington, has 300,000-plus miles on the odometer and looks it.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1jyE1P9
  • Do People Actually Wear Pajamas?
    With the arrival of cooler weather comes the resurgence, in catalogs and department stores, of that most dubious of offerings: the two-piece set of pajamas.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1PEPZ5D
  • How Jellyfish Exhibits Became Underwater Dance Clubs
    Infinite blue in action. (Photo: Dan90266/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 2.0) Jellyfish are, with all due respect, incredibly weird. They’re 95 percent water, and spend their lives being pulled to and fro by currents.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1M18cuI
  • Refugees who changed the world
    (CNN)They are destitute, desperate but determined. Thousands of them flee their homes every year, risking lives in unseaworthy boats or packed truck beds. The cinematic icon and legendary cabaret singer rose to fame in Germany in the 1920s.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1RXRvzd
  • Why too much choice is stressing us out
    Once upon a time in Springfield, the Simpson family visited a new supermarket. Monstromart’s slogan was “where shopping is a baffling ordeal”.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1W5VMX4
  • Cirque Du Soleil Style Aerial Dance Gains Popularity In Phoenix Area
    There’s a new form of “dancercise” sweeping the Valley that’s guaranteed to leave you hanging. The art of aerial dance isn’t for everyone. But studios around the Valley are making it available to anyone, and you don’t even have to run away and join the circus.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1MH8O34
  • The Hollow Earth Is Filled With Giants, Germans, and A Little Sun
    Giants, Germans, and paradise all await within the Hollow Earth. (Rainy Season in the Tropics by Frederic Edwin Church) Ah, the underworld. From time immemorial, people have believed that there is another world lying just beneath the surface of our planet.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1MDZJbk
  • Please don’t call me A Girl Called Jack. I have something to tell you.
    First published in the New Statesman on 20 October 2015. I love a Google alert.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1W81Gak