bookmark_borderWeekend Reading

  • Hanami Is Japan’s Annual Obsession with Cherry Blossoms
    There are a lot of places to be curious about, so we started a Curiosity Travel Instagram. Where will your curiosity take you? Follow us! The blooming of Japan’s cherry blossoms is not only a delightful welcoming of springtime — it’s a national obsession.
    Bucket list!

  • To Hug, or Not to Hug?
    There’s a thing that happens on blind internet dates. I’ve never liked it.
    This kind of thing is alien to me. Surely you ask before touching someone!

  • The Art of Not Working at Work
    At first, the ability to check email, read ESPN, or browse Zappos while on the job may feel like a luxury. But in time, many crave more meaningful—and more demanding—responsibilities.
    For those of us in more traditional offices, ring any bells?

  • Charles Dickens imagined a Westworld-like robot park filled with “violent delights”
    WESTWORLD IS BACK!!

  • Instant payouts offer lifeline to Scotland’s rough sleepers
    Outreach workers in Scottish cities can make instant payouts of up to £200 for anything from haircuts to hotel rooms as part of a radical approach to entrenched rough sleeping.
    Here’s hoping this makes a difference.

  • Wine, Eros and Madness
    Unlike ice cream, orange juice, and most other things that taste good, wine is peculiar in that it is an object of devotion.
    I THINK you’ll find that SOME OF US are perfectly happy with our devotion to ice cream too!!

  • The Criminal Tribes of Madras Presidency
    In Dishonoured by History: ‘Criminal Tribes’ and British Colonial Policy, Meena Radhakrishna presents rare scholarship on some of the worst excesses of the British Empire.
    Horrific. A terrible history but we shouldn’t deny it, just learn from it (question: have we?? UKIP anyone?)

  • Watch the Trailer for a Stunning New 70-Millimeter Print of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001
    Sure, you’ve probably seen 2001: A Space Odyssey. But have you experienced 2001: A Space Odyssey? That particular verb no doubt implies different conditions to different people.
    Ohhh my days, when will this be in a cinema?!

  • How Janelle Monáe Found Her Voice
    On a hot December afternoon, the sky hazy from wildfires that raged just beyond the Los Angeles city limits, a handful of people gathered outside a nondescript Super 8 motel off Sunset Boulevard.
    One of the last gigs I saw at the Arches in Glasgow, she was little known then but already a megastar. If you’ve seen her live you’ll know what I mean.

  • It’s OK to Say if You Went Back in Time and Killed Baby Hitler
    Admit it. You went back in time and killed Baby Hitler. Official reason?
    Take a trope, rip it up. Lessons learned?

  • How Berlin became the capital of cool
    Why come to Berlin? Silly question. In the past decade, as London has become ruinously expensive and divided over Brexit, the German capital has claimed the crown of Europe’s coolest city.
    Definitely a place I need to go back to, I enjoyed it but so much left to explore (and preferably not on my own over a dreary October weekend)

  • We asked five experts: is walking enough exercise?
    We humans need to exercise in order to stay healthy. Exercise protects against disease and early death, and keeps us mobile and able to perform daily tasks. Walking is an easy, free and enjoyable form of exercise.
    TLDR; Yes.

  • Raccoon Crushed To Death By Garbage Truck Hits Jackpot With Reincarnation
    I won’t spoil this one. You don’t even need to read it. Just click through for the LOLs.

  • If you ever wonder why abused women don’t leave, look at this picture
    Never has this saying been more painfully true than when you’re confronted with the shocking image taken by a police officer on a domestic abuse call-out in London, shared on Twitter by Inspector Rowlands of the Metropolitan Police.
    Look at the picture.

  • I Listen to 35 Hours of Podcasts Every Week. Is That … Bad?
    A few weeks ago, I caught the bus, and before I even sat down, I started rummaging in my backpack for my earbuds. After tipping the bag’s contents out on my lap in an increasingly frantic state, I realized: I must have left them behind.
    Well, if No Such Thing As A Fish and 99% Invisible aren’t on your playlist, then, yes!

  • The World’s Shortest IQ Test is Only Three Questions
    A bat and a ball together cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
    2.5 out of 3 – I knew the first answer wasn’t the ‘obvious’ answer just couldn’t be arsed doing the rest of the work. Story of my life right there! (Hey, I passed, what else matters?)

  • I Wore A Fleece Vest To Work To See If I Felt Like A Tech Bro
    As a heterosexual woman over 30, I have been haunted by this photo of Jeff Bezos looking surprisingly swole since it appeared during the Sun Valley Conference last summer. I don’t want to get into it, and neither do you, but let’s all agree that his vest and aviators are definitely a LOOK.
    Clothes aren’t just fashion. Clothes are power.

  • Rooting for Elon
    Over the past year, in pursuit of his ambitious goals to transform U.S. auto and energy markets, Elon Musk has met critics from all directions: customers, stockholders, and workers.
    Read this after I published my previous post, honest.

  • Women Intellectuals and the Art of the Withering Quip
    “If one is a woman writer there are certain things one must do,” the British writer and journalist Rebecca West wrote to a friend in 1952. “First, not be too good; second, die young, what an edge Katherine Mansfield has on all of us; third, commit suicide like Virginia Woolf.
    Read it for the insight or read it for the amazing writing that is quoted.

  • Meteorologist
    This is NO WAY relates to some people I know. Nope. Not a bit. Honest…

  • Rebirth of Militant Feminism
    Of all the opposition movements to have erupted since 2008, the rebirth of a militant feminism is perhaps the most surprising—not least because feminism as such had never gone away; women’s empowerment has long been a mantra of the global establishment.
    Long read but worth it to fully understand where this sits in the waves of feminism. Equality soon please.

  • The Epidemic of Isolation Among Young Men
    In 2017, former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy identified the most common threat to public health that he had seen: not heart disease, diabetes, or cancer—but loneliness.
    Not directly, but THIS is why I’m a feminist, this is why I want equality. It’s also why I can struggle to make new male (identifying) friends.

  • Ice breaker question
    Ice-breaker question I came up with a few years ago that I call the “off-diagonal” question: Tell me about something you love doing that you’re terrible at. And tell me about something you really do not like doing that you’re great at. That is from Mike Kim on Twitter.
    Noted and stored for later use.

  • A Paean to PB&P
    Why a peanut butter and pickle sandwich is the totally not-gross snack you need in your mouth right now.
    My spidey sense is telling me this MAY fall into the ‘marmite’ discussion camp… but I’m trying it!

  • London Marathon 2018 – Hot, Hot, Hot
    So, London Marathon. You were hot and pretty bloody emotional. This post is going to be more on the race, I will do a seperate one on the expo, my weekend in London and all the surprises (friends turning up) along the way. Sunday morning, 6am, I was wide awake.
    I knew a couple of people who ran the London Marathon this year. I’ve followed Fi’s training via blog and Instagram. I am in absolute awe and, yes, there were a few tears on my end when I read this.

  • Me, doing my own head in
    Thinking. It’s a funny thing, isn’t it? I’m pretty sure if you asked anyone to explain what it actually was, they’d have a fairly hard time doing so (even Wikipedia doesn’t know – I checked).
    Some simple definitions which really resonated. If you only read one of these links today, start with this one.

  • The pie chart: Why data visualization’s greatest villain will never die
    The point of charts is to communicate data effectively. Or, at least, that is point according to data-visualization experts. The truth about why people like and use charts is more complicated than that. For the regular person, it’s more about art than science.
    People prefer art (emotion) to science (non-emotion). Shocking.

bookmark_borderFinding the glimmers

As a child of the 70s our future was bright, so bright we had to wear shades. It was full of rockets and space exploration as the buzz of the moon landing continued to pervade my childhood years, spurned on by Star Wars and the promise of galaxies far far away…

It’s easy to question where our jetpacks are, why I’m not eating meals in pill form, and what ever became of space elevators anyway? We had dreams and hopes and aspirations all of which were to be manifest in many wonderous objects that would impact our daily lives.

It makes me wonder though, what do the youth of today aspire to? What do they dream for their future? Is the pinnacle of achievement now to be famous? Where are the inventors and dreamers? For all his haters, is Elon Musk really the leading light, the JFK of our time with a Mars-shot mission?

Or is it just too hard to dream anymore? Are our hopes pulled down to earth by the constant barrage of reality, writ large at every turn, unescapable horrors and tragedy abound.

The news delivers the usual stories of turmoil and hatred, death and destruction. Social media amplifies the worst aspects and our always on society ripples and rears up in reaction. Peer past the headlines and the future is laid bare, Atwood and Orwell nod wisely from the sidelines.

Russian cyber terrorists turn off the power to a city block. American journalists are chided from on high. Governments form around power and control, serving themselves and not the people. Brexit, Trump, ISIS, cyber-warfare. Anti anti anti.

Money the root of all, absolutely corrupting power, over-inflated egos target the disenfranchised, divide and divide. Them against us.

It’s hard to look away. Cars crashing over and over, the video loops, we stare and stare, we are numb, we are seemingly ineffective. Protest all you want, nothing will change. We are the endlessly silent majority, powerless against the feckless thugs that rule the world.

Bleak. Desolate times.

How can we dream?

How do we combat this endless, relentless, stomping down?

Can we push back? Can we retrace our steps and find a different way?

What are we missing as the world spins in a maelstrom of bedlam?

When all around seems so so dark it can be hard to find those small moments of beauty, of compassion, of love.

But they are there and the more light we shine on them the brighter they become. A smile between strangers, a flower between the paving stones, a shard of sunlight between the buildings, these things are timeless and can’t be captured by a glowing screen. Look around.

Look for the glimmers. They are always there. Sometimes they are hidden and you need to seek them out. Sometimes they are there in plain view if only you choose to see. Sometimes they make you stop, a slap in the face, the wakeup.

Beauty exists.

Love is real.

Compassion and care are the quietest noises but can build and build to a cacophony, a soaring roar of the masses that will push back. Me too, they said, and so it was. What’s next?

Raise them up, these wonderful moments. Elevate and amplify. Stand behind them. Stand shoulder to shoulder. Stand firm.

They are always there.

These magical moments of beauty and wonder.

The glimmers.

bookmark_borderWeekend Reading

  • Public Place Meditation Exercise
    Excited to share my all-time favorite thing to do on the subway, or other public transportation. It’s also one of the best empathy exercises I’ve thought of and really helps to remind me to feel the moments of love and pain we all go through.
    Tried this a few days this week (identify the person and you can close your eyes or look away, staring is creepy!) and… it kinda works.

  • Turkish Delight
    For all the haters. Turkish Delight is a thing of wonder.

  • Who has time for that?
    Above: art-making advice from our 40-year-old ovens.
    You always have more time than you think.

  • Twenty years ago, Netflix.com launched. The movie business has never been the same.
    Moviegoers once devoted substantial chunks of their Friday evenings to perusing the aisles of video stores. You’d go in with one movie in mind, but the latest releases had been picked over.
    Place your bets now on the next 20 (I vote for big-screen streaming events become the norm, vote for your fav and watch it at the cinema).

  • What smartphone photography is doing to our memories
    Though they may appear crystal clear in our minds, our memories are not a carbon copy of the events we witnessed. Every time we recall a memory, we may accidentally alter it or diminish its accuracy. Even trivial memories are easily corrupted with mere suggestions.
    …. and I had THE BEST comment on this article… ummmmm….

  • Hating Sundays
    I’ve lived alone for 6 years now and in that time I’ve realised how much I hate Sundays. There’s just something about them. I never want to do too much else I’ll end up knackered for the week ahead but that means that more often than not I end up not making plans at all.
    For those that read my ‘Sunday Mornings’ piece, you are not alone!

  • Malcolm Gladwell Explains Where His Ideas Come From
    For many readers out there, the publication of a new Malcolm Gladwell article ranks as an event demanding immediate attention.
    I always enjoy his writing, even if I don’t agree with it all. Stories are where the humanity lies.

  • The Hague bans marijuana smoking in city centre
    The Hague has become the first Dutch city to ban the smoking of marijuana around its city centre, central railway station and major shopping areas. Flyers are to be distributed at cannabis-selling coffee shops and homeless shelters to warn of fines for those caught breaching the ban.
    Have to say, glad to hear this. Barcelona was beautiful but too often *cough* that smell.. bleuch.

  • Plastic recycling: Why are 99.75% of coffee cups not recycled?
    It’s gradually becoming common knowledge that it’s not as easy to recycle your takeaway coffee cup as people may have thought. The mixture of paper and plastic in their inner lining – designed to make them both heat and leakproof – makes them difficult to recycle.
    There has to be a compromise.

  • 10 Ways To Have A Better Conversation
    I definitely will take this talk by Celeste Headlee to heart. Time to take an honest look at how I ‘listen’.
    For those who struggle to make small talk, try listening better (some good tips I hadn’t heard before in this little video).

  • From Madonna to Janelle Monáe: how female sexuality progressed in pop
    In 1997, Aerosmith released an ode to the female anatomy, simply titled Pink, in which Steven Tyler famously brayed about his tremendous love of a woman’s vagina.
    I’d say Monáe for next US President but know the Beyonce fans would win that vote… Monáe for VP?

  • Joy Neville: ‘Coping in a male-dominated world? I don’t know anything else’
    Joy Neville never wanted to be a referee.
    Here’s hoping it’s easier for the next non-male rugby referees to come through.

  • The Ladies Who Were Famous for Wanting to Be Left Alone
    On the night of Monday, March 30, 1778, an Anglo-Irish lady named Sarah Ponsonby, age twenty-three, the unmarried dependent of well-placed relatives (her parents long dead), slipped out of her guardians’ Georgian mansion in Woodstock, Kilkenny, the rest of the house asleep.
    It shouldn’t be a surprise that history is littered with amazing women. I’m glad these stories are coming to the fore.

  • Against marriage
    What distinguishes marriage from other relationships? It is not set apart by its durability: unmarried partnerships can be more permanent than married ones.
    File under: YMMV. (note: I’m divorced but I’m not against marriage).

  • How a Liberal Scholar of Conspiracy Theories Became the Subject of a Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory
    In 2010, Marc Estrin, a novelist and far-left activist from Vermont, found an online version of a paper by Cass Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School and the most frequently cited legal scholar in the world.
    What goes around comes around?

  • Disneyflix Is Coming. And Netflix Should Be Scared.
    Will Disney destroy the movie theater? No company has been more responsible for shaping the modern entertainment landscape than Walt Disney. In 1937, with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, its first feature film, Disney invented the family blockbuster.
    And, in the midst of all this, us poor schmucks who’ll end up shelling out another monthly fee….

  • Your Eyes Aren’t Windows Into Your Soul
    To understand the expressive range of the human face, nothing beats watching a colleague scream his head off in slow motion. When my lab began to study protective reflexes in the early 2000s, the video cameras came out and the place became a scare factory.
    Ha, like I have a soul…

  • Trailblazing Scottish Mountaineer and Poet Nan Shepherd on the Transcendent Rewards of Walking and What Makes for an Ideal Walking Companion
    To place one foot in front of the other in a steady rhythm is to allow self and world to cohere, to set the mind itself into motion. We walk for different reasons and to different ends — for Thoreau, every walk was “a sort of crusade”; for artist Maira Kalman, it is “the glory of life.”
    I do love walking, solo. I also like walking with some people but not others. Some of the reasons are in this article.

  • The Boston Marathon Had Two Shocking Winners
    You will read, and in fact are reading right now, that Desi Linden and Yuki Kawauchi’s times (2:39:54 and 2:15:58) were the slowest winning times in the Boston Marathon in 40 and 42 years, respectively.
    Bonkers. Aren’t humans constantly fascinating.

  • Scrivener for Blogging
    This blog post was written in Scrivener. I think you’re all well-aware of my Scrivener addiction by now. I’ve posted reviews of both the mac version and the iOS app, and a YouTube series devoted to the topic is in the works.
    Posting more for myself and my decade long search for a ‘workflow’ that ‘works’.

  • Evangelism
    LOLz

  • Elon Musk’s advice for when you’re dragged into useless meetings
    Yes.

  • Three kinds of meetings
    Meetings are marketing in real time with real people. (A conference is not a meeting. A conference is a chance for a circle of people to interact). PLEASE don’t confuse them. Confused meeting types are the number one source of meeting ennui.
    Yes to this also.

  • What Amazon learned by having employees write stories instead of doing PowerPoints
    And whilst we are at it, this too.

  • The calmness of airplane pilots
    Yesterday a Southwest flight from NYC to Dallas experienced an in-flight engine explosion and had to make an emergency landing in Philadelphia. The explosion tore a hole in the fuselage and a passenger started to get sucked out of the hole before being pulled back in (she subsequently died).
    The audio of this is utterly engrossing.

  • Actually, Table Salt Rules
    For years, I politely declined to keep the pedestrian substance known as table salt in my pantry.
    Are YOU a salt snob?

  • How to Get Minesweeper on Your Mac
    If you’ve been a die-hard Apple fan since you first put your fingers to a keyboard, there’s a chance you’ve never experienced the thrill of Minesweeper—one of the two classic games that used to be found on Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
    I didn’t realise how much I missed Minesweeper until now. (note: turns out, not that much…)

  • The Scientific Case for a Big Breakfast
    The big thing in sports nutrition in the 1990s was the “window of opportunity.” Down some carbs immediately after a workout, a notable 1988 study found, and you’ll replenish your fuel stores 75 percent more quickly than if you down the same carbs two hours later.
    No, not Chris Evans… ALL THE FOOD!!

  • TOO MANY MEN
    Nothing like this has happened in human history. A combination of cultural preferences, government decree and modern medical technology in the world’s two largest countries has created a gender imbalance on a continental scale. Men outnumber women by 70 million in China and India.
    I think the headline says it all (and in ALL CAPS too).

  • What Comes After The Social Media Empires
    The intense political battles over Facebook and the other giant social media companies mark the end of the empire-building phase of those companies’ history. Now they’re a mid-20th-century European power, agonizing over the inevitable loss of the colonies and trying to stomp out insurgencies.
    I’m gonna guess it’s not silence and the end of trolls.

  • Why restaurants became so loud — and how to fight back
    When the Line Hotel opened in Washington, DC, last December, the cocktail bars, gourmet coffee shops, and restaurants that fill its cavernous lobby drew a lot of buzz. Housed in a century-old church, the space was also reputedly beautiful.
    And where America leads, the UK shall follow (see the last point, ugh (also, not ALL etc etc))

bookmark_borderNo such thing as over sharing

I’ve only ever taken one shower with my clothes on.

I was alone at the time and can still remember the sensations as my t-shirt started clinging to me, my jeans growing heavy and cold on my legs. I was drunk, had just thrown up then crawled into the bath and turned the shower tap on. I lay there as the water fell on me and I cried. My wife had (rightly) just left me and gone back to Scotland, I was alone and in the early grips of the darkest days of my depression.

I’m not sure why I turned the shower on, perhaps a memory from a movie scene was my inspiration, yet looking back it all seems a bit emo-angsty and overly dramatic. At the time I think I was just hoping to feel something other than emptiness but it’s a hazy memory at best but I don’t think that should detract from the reason why I just shared that story in the first place.

I’ve shared a lot of things about me on this blog. Some would say too much at times but, as I’ve said before, this blog is not all of me. Even the most personal posts exclude some details; sometimes that is due to embarassment, sometimes to protect others, sometimes because it just didn’t feel right to share (or it would’ve detracted from what I was trying to write), sometimes because it’s can be hard to share things with complete honesty, and sometimes because I don’t really know the people reading it and, to be blunt, you haven’t earned my trust.

As an example, take that opening paragraph. There is much more to that story, much more to the before and after of that moment, but my point isn’t to lay out my life in fine detail its just to lay out the sense of a moment, just to give something to say ‘I’ve been there too’ to anyone who reads it, after all you don’t share a map when you come back from a holiday, just the best snapshots (do I win the worst analogy award for that??).

I’ve written about my depression in the past, in fact the 20 year anniversary of that post is later this year. When I wrote it I wasn’t even sure I would publish it but I’m glad I did, not just because it helped me process things but because it also helped a couple of other people who emailed me at the time to say thank you. Before that I hadn’t even thought about what I was sharing nor that it might actually be helpful to someone else.

And here’s the thing about mental health issues. Everyone has them. EVERYONE. Even if you don’t want to acknowledge it within yourself, there is probably something going on somewhere, a disquiet or unease, even just that low level feeling of ‘I’ve HAD IT with people today’. It may manifest itself in other ways, like my more recent feeling of being a bit stuck that sent me back to counselling. That wasn’t about depression, but was mostly definitely something that was affecting my mental health and I’m so glad I got some help with it. I spoke to my closest friends and family about it, and they were all supportive and, ultimately, it teased out some stories from them as well about their own mental health.

Everyone has mental health issues of some sort.

Everyone.

Many people can get through entire working days, weeks even, without anyone knowing what is really going on in their heads. Like many other kinds of illness mental health issues can be completely invisible. Ask any of the colleagues I worked with during that time in my life, 20 years ago, and I doubt they’d have known; I didn’t miss a days work and was my usual sarcastic self the entire time. They didn’t know about the lay-by on the way home I’d often stop at because I realised I was seriously considering crashing my car on purpose, they didn’t know about the late nights lying in the dark and wondering if anyone would really miss me if I was no longer around.

More recently I wrote about the loneliness of Sunday mornings and had a couple of people contact me to say I had struck a chord and that they felt that way too. They thanked me for sharing it, after all a problem shared is a problem halved (well, shared again at least) and, again, it struck me that sharing MORE is a good thing.

And that is one of the reasons I wrote about, and will continue to write about these things. The stigma around mental health is loosening but, as with most of these things, it’ll take time to change and I think the more people who share their own stories, the quicker it’ll happen.

As I get older and continue to figure out (and challenge) who I am, the further away those dark days of my depression seem. I’m lucky that these days my worst ‘down days’ are probably no more than a few hours of feeling maudlin. There is no real rhyme or reason to them, Sunday mornings excluded, but I’ve learned when to accept them and let myself wallow a little (but not too much).

Sometimes it’s ok to give in for a little bit, have a cry, eat some chocolate, hide from the world under a blanket, whatever works for you.

As I age I find my darker thoughts turning to my future. When will I be able to afford to retire? When I’m very old, if I’m still single, what happens if I fall and can’t get up? Will I find someone to share Sunday mornings with again? Do I really want to find someone to live with when I am old? Ohhh how my brain so easily picks up on the smallest thought, the tiniest concern, and quickly nurtures it until it grows large enough to block out the sun.

It turns out the black cloud is never all that far away.

Sharing these moments of my life on this blog, publically, is not something I do lightly. I’m aware they may be triggering for some people, I’m aware that some people will think less of me for doing so, but I’m also aware that sharing these thoughts, no matter how little they may relate to the lives of others means that now and then someone who does read them may feel a little less alone, a little less broken, a little more hopeful that they too can get through things.

When I started this blog I wrote about topical things, nonsense things, things that zipped by me on the ever growing internet. I spent time digging around in the Yahoo directories or reading other weblogs as I found them. I wrote about things I was doing, about events in my life, movies I’d watched. For a while it was more diary than blog, but for a long time now this is place where I write to think. I don’t publish all of it but sometimes when I’m in the midst of writing a post I’ll realise that maybe, just maybe, it might be beneficial to others to read that someone else is going through something similar.

We are all human, we all have foibles and faults. We all carry with us many demons of differing size and emotion. We are imperfect.

A few days after I took that shower I managed to summon up the courage to talk to my doctor. I told her I was feeling depressed, that my life seemed to be stuck behind a glass wall where the sounds and colours and connections were muted. A couple of weeks later I had my first counselling session.

To this day I’ve never taken another shower with my clothes on.

bookmark_borderWeekend Reading

  • Africa is splitting into two after tear in Kenya’s Rift Valley [Video]
    After heavy rains and seismic activities on Monday, the earth has split open at Kenya’s Rift Valley leaving a huge tear that is more than 50 feet deep and more than 50 feet wide weaving through the arable land in Narok County.
    And here we all are worrying about Trump, meanwhile in Africa…

  • Drawing is back in fashion as British Museum offer pencils and paper for new blockbuster exhibition
    It was once the staple of every artist’s practice, before falling out of fashion at the hands of conceptual art, formaldehyde cows and unmade beds.
    What a great idea!

  • What About “The Breakfast Club”?
    Earlier this year, the Criterion Collection, which is “dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world,” released a restored version of “The Breakfast Club,” a film written and directed by John Hughes that I acted in, more than three decades ago.
    Did anyone NOT fall in love with Molly Ringwald at this time? Great look on how we replay the values of today on art of the past.

  • quotemail #19: life is seasonal
    Those words knocked the wind out of me, and I wanted to share them. She understands that she is harvesting after patiently planting and tending to her garden, and it has shifted my own mindset. Now I understand: life is seasonal. Some years are for questions, and some years are for answers.
    I’ve already shared this on Twitter and Facebook but worth it again. When something resonates this hard, you come back to over and over.

  • This 1785 Dictionary of Vulgar Phrases Is a Hilarious …
    Did your mom ever wash your mouth out with soap when you were a rambunctious little scamp? If she did, you definitely know the childish joy of discovering “bad” words for the first time. Naughty language isn’t a modern novelty, and a 1785 dictionary of vulgarities proves it.
    Your challenge for today, pick one and use it in a random conversation. See if anyone notices!

  • The dots do matter: how to scam a Gmail user
    I recently received an email from Netflix which nearly caused me to add my card details to someone else’s Netflix account. Here I show that this is a new kind of phishing scam which is enabled by an obscure feature of Gmail called “the dots don’t matter”.
    I get this all the time (well ‘wrong’ email address signups). Apparently I own a Merc in Arizona somewhere…

  • South Korea’s former president is going to prison. The scandal behind it is batshit.
    South Korea’s former President Park Geun-hye has been sentenced to 24 years in prison and ordered to pay a whopping $17 million in fines after being convicted of bribery, coercion, abuse of power, and other charges.
    Say it with me, truth is stranger than fiction (which reminds me to get back to my attempts at fiction and beef them up a bit!)

  • Making the Touch Bar finally useful
    Back in 2017, I thought the Touch Bar had a vast potential to become engaging and helpful. I believed developers might support it in their applications. I was hoping there was a use for it.
    My 2012 MacBook Air is slowly dying. I will need to replace. Was gonna avoid Touch Bar but now… hmmmmm

  • How to Find New Music You’ll Actually Like
    Some people can dig up great music like magic, or have friends inside the industry who keep them updated. Some people are contented with their weekly Spotify Discover playlist.
    Nothing particularly radical in here but it’s a constant battle for me.

  • Headlines making you anxious? Delay reading them
    It’s a rare week, these days, that you don’t encounter some new, extreme plan for staying sane in a world of insanity-inducing headlines. People used to recommend one device-free day a week, or the occasional “digital detox” retreat.
    File under: So obvious you wonder why you didn’t think of it.

  • Stray Dog
    One of Moriyama Daidō’s most famous black-and-white photographs is of a stray dog, a bit wolfish, with matted hair, looking back into the camera watchfully, with a hint of aggression. He took the picture in 1971 in Misawa, home to a large US Air Force base, in the northeast of Japan.
    A story that isn’t about a dog at all…

  • Nikola Tesla predicted the smartphone in 1926
    In an interview published in Collier’s magazine in 1926, Nikola Tesla, then in the twilight of his career, made some predictions about the future that included electric airplane flights “from New York to Europe in a few hours”, more frequent earthquakes, and temperate zones becoming cooler…
    Genuine genius.

  • Glasgow Garden Festival: Did you go to the event in 1988?
    This is fab. I think I was there a few times, with groups and with my family.

  • You’ve Seen This Letter Everywhere, But Can You Write It?
    Which one is correct? (Credit: Johns Hopkins University) Most of us learn the ABCs in our youth. We see and say the letters so many times they eventually become etched in our minds.
    Given it’s the first letter of my name, and I’m a bit of a typography/font nerd… yeah I got it right!

  • The New Yorker’s musical magazine cover
    The New Yorker has a fun cover this week from cartoonist Tom Gauld. The New York street scene shows bits of music being played and listened to by people and birds and if you click through to the interactive version, you can listen to what each snippet of musical notation sounds like.
    Well this is just lovely.

  • The Countries That Drink the Most Wine Will Certainly …
    Unwinding with a glass of wine is a practice embraced worldwide, whether it’s to relax, enjoy over dinner with friends and family, or celebrate a special occasion. Wine consumption varies by country, but some countries are decidedly more enthusiastic about it than others.
    Next up, who are those people who manage to have ‘leftover wine’?

  • If Budgeting Your Money Is Too Hard, Try This Instead
    Everybody knows having a budget is a good idea. But actually sitting down, looking through your finances, and writing down how much you’ll spend on everything this month? That’s easier said than done. Sure, many people make and stick to a budget.
    I budget. I could do better. Gonna give this a whirl.

  • The Case of the Very, Very Friendly Man Online
    This is what most people’s social-media comments look like, right? A few banal pleasantries, some vague support, a soothing confirmation that you look nice in your new profile photo.
    I’ve been called out on this in the past, I genuinely didn’t realise I was doing it. If I’ve ever made anyone feel uncomfortable, please say (more on this later I think).

  • Extraordinary aerial photograph of Edinburgh circa 1920
    I’d never seen this stunning aerial photograph of Edinburgh taken by Alfred Buckham circa 1920.
    Neither had I.

  • Aging Ghosts in the Skincare Machine
    Let me start with my skin in the game. In the four months between November 2017 and February 2018, I spent about $520 on skincare products. This number does not include makeup. It does not include shampoo or conditioner. It does not include body lotion. And it is, in all likelihood, a little low.
    The skincare industry is bonkers mental.

  • Ticks rising
    Evolution has endowed the big-footed snowshoe hare with a particularly nifty skill. Over a period of about 10 weeks, as autumn days shorten in the high peaks and boreal forests, the nimble nocturnal hare transforms itself.
    Hands up if you feel a bit ‘itchy’ now?

  • Order to the Chaos of Life: Isabel Allende on Writing
    Literary history is ripe with eloquent attempts to answer the ever-elusive question of why writers write. For George Orwell, it resulted from four universal motives. Joan Didion saw it as precious access to her own mind. For David Foster Wallace, it was about fun.
    I find dedication and passion for anything utterly fascinating. What drives you, won’t drive me, but it’s still fascinating.

  • The improbable story of the cranberry’s path to global domination
    The secret of the cranberry’s success has always been stealth. After two centuries of cranberry-free Thanksgivings, the fruit quietly became a holiday staple thanks to US general Ulysses S. Grant’s 1864 holiday feast.
    *invests in cranberries*

  • Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes mashup is bigger than a Mega-Penguinosaurus
    For the entire stretch of the ‘80s, for many a penguin-loving comics-phile, the Sunday funny papers were the place to be, thanks to the illuminating work of Berkeley Breathed on his strip Bloom County.
    Dear Mr Watters. Please do more (but only if you want to).

  • Booze bargain hunt: the best budget supermarket tipples
    With a £10 gin from Aldi named one of the best in the world, the likes of Lidl and Asda are giving drinkers cause for cheer. Here’s our guide to the best hidden treasures.
    Yeah because what I need is MORE gin…

  • Stephen King Creates a List of His 10 Favorite Novels
    If you’ve ever had to name your ten favorite of anything, you know how much trickier such a list is to compose than it sounds.
    AKA when a top 10 list becomes a … top 28??

  • When Did Geek Culture Get so Angry?
    In January 2011, Jared Lee Loughner, then twenty-two years of age, attempted to assassinate US representative Gabrielle Giffords at a meet-and-greet with her constituents. Giffords survived, but six people died that day in a supermarket parking lot.
    Is the answer anything to do with ‘men’?

  • The Darker Side of Leonard Cohen
    O, the night Leonard Cohen’s death was announced, pilgrims began assembling at the doorstep of Cohen’s Montreal home to cry, pray, and lay offerings. This was just the beginning.
    Dare I suggest I rank Cohen alongside The Smiths as ‘hype does not justify the product’? I think I dare.

  • Who Does She Think She Is?
    Another day at the Telegraph and another attack on Laurie Penny. — Nick Cohen, The Spectator, 2011 Do you think that red hair and makeup is used for anything other than attention? Her writing? Same. That bitch is a whore who needs to die choking on cocks. — 4chan, 2016
    I hope she never ever stops. What is this world??!!

  • The Real Technology Problem
    We know Congress and Mark Zuckerberg won’t discuss the real technology problem. Neither will we. Ironically, it’s private. Sure, the privacy issue is worth examining and big tech needs to get humbled.
    What are you reading this on, right now? Is that the real problem?

  • Andre Ingram steals the show in Lakers’ loss to Rockets
    Staples Center stirred in anticipation as a thin 32-year-old rookie with taut cheeks and gray-speckled hair walked over to the scorer’s table to check in. The arena erupted when the part-time math tutor made his first three-pointer.
    10 years in minor leagues and finally gets a shot with the ‘big boys’. This is heartwarmingly lovely (go Lakers!!)

  • Airbus to Offer Naps in the Cargo Hold
    It won’t be a room with a view, but may help prevent neck strain. Passengers flying on Airbus SE planes will soon be able to slip down into the cargo hold for a proper nap.
    I struggle to sleep sitting up, so YES PLEASE TO THIS!!

  • Scottish police ‘rescue’ metal fans mistaken for suicide pact members
    Emergency services mounted a full-scale rescue operation, including fire engines, ambulances and lifeboats, after a passerby thought a group of heavy metal fans out camping were involved in a suicide pact.
    OK, so WHO CALLED THE POLICE??

  • Dêjà Rêvé Is Even Weirder Than Dêjà Vu
    According to legend, Cassandra, the princess of Troy, was cursed to speak true prophecies that no one ever believed.
    That weird dream, yeah it was weird, but was it prophetic?

  • What if The Shining was an 8-bit Video Game?
    My love of everything ‘The Shining’ grows and grows…

  • I refuse to be silenced
    Whore. Liar. Traitor. Opportunist. I have been called all of these things and more since I first began to speak out last October about being raped in 1997, when I was 21 years old, by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
    Amplifying.

  • The Infuriating Innocence of Mark Zuckerberg
    Mark Zuckerberg has spent most of his adult life apologizing, but he hasn’t managed to improve much.
    Facebook isn’t the problem. YOU are the problem (me too!).

bookmark_borderPodcast: Distraction Pieces

Hosted by Scroobius Pip, this weekly podcast is always, ALWAYS, interesting. Not only because the host is a smart guy but because he manages to put his guests at ease no matter how dark or deep the topic. He’s as adept at bringing out moments of humour and humanity as he is treading the fine lines of discussions around, for example, addiction.

And what a mixed bag of guests. Refreshingly, for every episode I’ve listened to so far, each guest realises this is a conversation about wider topics and no-one appears to be selling their latest product or pushing a certain storyline. Yes, it’s an interview, but it’s more a frank exchange of ideas and thoughts between intelligent, erudite, people.

Some examples to peruse:

You can subscribe to future episodes using this RSS Link.