Weekend Reading

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  • Why we need loneliness
    Loneliness is epidemic, and in the coming years it could explode. Forty percent of people age 65 and older report being lonely at times. And the percentage of people living alone has been rising steadily since the 1960s.
    Lots of negative connotations around loneliness but we all need a little space. So, if you could budge over a bit, that’d be grand!
  • Stick to a Weekly Routine to Add Flexibility to Your Schedule
    Having a daily routine helps you develop good habits and stick to your goals. If you have a hectic schedule, though, forcing certain types of work into every day can be counterproductive. Instead, build a weekly schedule.
    Counter-intuitive advice? Wonderful life hack? Yet another self-important blog post that is mostly common sense? You decide!
  • The Iconoclast
    In May 2001 a middle-aged woman named Sharon visited her oncologist for what she thought could be her final appointment. Two months earlier, Sharon had been diagnosed with metastatic melanoma, and her condition was already well beyond dire.
    Kick ass awesomeness in full flow!
  • DeafBlind Americans developed a language that doesn’t involve sight or sound
    A video showing a new language. Amaze.
  • Africa unplugged
    A few miles down a rutted dirt road, and many more from the nearest town, a small farmhouse stands surrounded by dense green bush. On the inside of one wall gangly wires reach down to a switch and light that are connected to a solar panel.
    How Africans are devising their own ways to get connected to the world. Both inspiring and humbling.
  • Millennials Are Drinking the World’s Coffee Supply Dry
    You never used to drink so much. You used to be good at going without the strong stuff for a few days. But now, an innocent mid-morning macchiato preludes your 3 PM soy latte and a quickie espresso is just the hit you need to pep you up for after-work drinks. Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
    Damn Millennials! Some of us have been drinking coffee way long than these whippersnappers! Back in my day, this was all fields…
  • Half of Heathrow’s 25,000 noise complaints made by the same 10 people
    Heathrow received more than 25,000 noise complaints in just three months over the summer – but around half were made by the same 10 people.
    Could this be any more British??
  • The new IFTTT is here
    We launched IFTTT in 2010 with a simple mission: to bring the control we take for granted in the physical world to our digital services, and help them work together. The world’s changed rapidly over the last six years, but every twist leads us back to that promise.
    I am quitely excited by this. I use IFTTT to help generate these posts and a few other tasks, the more I can automate the better! (until someone hacks in and my lights starting flashing on and off randomly).
  • To be happier, pray at the altar of progress and put your faith in technology
    Faith in progress has overtaken religiosity as the answer to the question of how to be happier in secular societies. It used to be traditional religious belief best bolstered well being, providing the faithful a sense of control in a wild world.
    I’d agree that perhaps it’s just that education is better so people are more willing to question religion and find it’s many foibles??
  • UNSATISFYING
    During the summer of 2016, We created and directed a video about unsatisfying situations: the frustrating, annoying, disappointing little things of everyday life, that are so painful to live or even to watch.
    You’ve probably seen this little video (I’ve been sharing it on Twitter and Facebook) but SO worth a watch. That soup spoon! GAH!!
  • How to Cut Cake Fairly and Finally Eat It Too
    Two young computer scientists have figured out how to fairly divide cake among any number of people, setting to rest a problem mathematicians have struggled with for decades. Their work has startled many researchers who believed that such a fair-division protocol was probably impossible.
    This still doesn’t answer my question! Why do I need to cut MY CAKE! (Gordon doesn’t share food).
  • Typology: Pub
    English literature starts with a night down the pub, when the pilgrims assemble in the Tabard Inn at the beginning of The Canterbury Tales. It is a little Britain, in a microcosmic rather than a xenophobic sense: a boozy heterotopia where knight and clerk can mingle.
    Quiet background music, good choice of drinks, and never too busy that you have a long queue at the bar. Cosy interior, dimmed lights. Yes, I’ll take one old man pub to go please!