There is so much good about this piece by Zadie Smith that if I started pulling in quotes from it, I would essentially replicate it. It’s an effortless read, and yet even as I was reading it, I could feel how great it is. I had the feeling of racing down a high mountain on skis, exhilarated and impressed by the beauty and amazed how fast I am going and then it is done.
So, yes, I recommend you read: Find Your Beach by Zadie Smith | The New York Review of Books.
I find myself on my smartphone too much. It’s too easy to fall into that trap, and afterwards I wish I did something else instead. Did something useful. Or made something beautiful. Austin Kleon feels the same way, based on this post of his: Read a book instead. He made a screen lock for his phone to remind him to read a book and get off his phone.
I decided I wanted something similar. In my case, I found a photo I liked and used the Over app on my iPhone to create this:
I then saved it as my LockScreen. Now when I pick up the phone to start doing something mindless, the phone reminds me to do something better.
You can do the same thing yourself. You don’t even need an app or drawing skills. Write a reminder on a piece of paper and then take a photo of it with your phone and save it as your Lock Screen. It could be just the nudge you need.
Thanks for reading this. I hope you found it useful. If you did, then time spent doing it instead of playing with stuff on my phone was worthwhile.
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Posted in advice
Tagged advice, austinkleon, phones, procrastination, smart, timewasting
I am amused every time I watch it. The folks who make it do a great job. It reminds me of the classic: Dogs Playing Poker,
Freshpet Holiday Feast – 13 Dogs and 1 Cat Eating with Human Hands – YouTube.
On it’s own, this is a great piece:
Old Masters at the Top of Their Game – NYTimes.com. The woman above? 99. She sold her first painting at 89. She is now a world renowned artist. And there’s more great profiles of people in it. You should read it, and not just if you are older. I recommend it for any age. How you read it at 20 will be different than how you read it at 40 or 60. For me, I was struck by how many of those interviewed say that nothing surprises them. As I get older, I find this true too, though I am still surprised. The flip side of this is that anxiety and concern about many things in life decreases. You know how to handle things, and you spend less time worrying about the things you ought not to worry about.
Another thing I thought interesting is that they don’t necessarily think of themselves as old. This is something I also found true as I age. I know when I talk to the 20 year olds in my office they must look at me and think: man, he’s old. 🙂 But other than superficial things, I don’t find my thinking or my view on the world has diminished from when I was younger. I have more experience now, and I had more natural energy then, but I don’t think: wow I no longer get this IT stuff now that I am older.
I highly encourage you to read the article. Then check out Austin Kleon’s blog because I found it there a lot with many other good things.
This is fascinating: 10 historic photographs an instant earlier.
If you immediately see in your mind the photo that comes after this one….
…then head on over to that site.
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Posted in cool
Tagged cool, history, photographs
Chances are, if you talk to five different people at work, you will find five tools or techniques they use to be productive that you hadn’t even heard of.
Rather than do your own polling, you can also check out this article: Most Popular Apps Employees Use At Work – Business Insider.
Remember, these are just for work, and yes, Facebook still shows up there. And this is just the cloud / distributed services. (Also, I am wondering Evernote didn’t show up there.)
I would be surprised if you read it and didn’t adopt at least one of the items on the list by the end of your work day. Good luck.
I’ve made this Sweet and Spicy Asian Pork Shoulder Recipe from Real Simple a number of times and it has come out great everymtime. Besides the wonderful flavours, it doesn’t use too much liquid. I find many slow cooker recipes do, and that spoils the dish for me.
You may want to trim the fat before you make this recipe. Or make it the day before, cool of the liquid, and then skim the fat off the wonderful sauce that results in slow cooking the pork. Also, it calls for a lot of sugar, but it is not too much, if you ask me.
For a variation of the recipe, see this: Chinese Slow-Cooked Pork Shoulder from the Food Network. This has more liquid than I like, but some of you might prefer this.
If so, you know of all the …stuff…Word will add in there. I understand why Microsoft does it, but I would rather not have it. If you are in the same boat, I recommend you check out this site: Convert Word Documents to Clean HTML. It gives you the ability to take snippets of said HTML and clean it up for you.
It has it’s limits, but worth a look. Or to your tool box.
Interesting speculation on where Amy Winehouse’s musical direction would have gone if she hadn’t died so young: Amy In The Sun: The Other (Caribbean) Side of Amy Winehouse via LargeUp. That post has a lot of links to Amy’s performances on YouTube, so if you are the mood for something other than Christmas music, click on that link and enjoy.
So for those of you who say, “Hey! We were promised jetpacks!”…well, like the future, they are hear but just not evenly distributed.
For this videos and more on this, go here: This Man Flew Over Mt. Fuji on a Real-Life Jetpack, and It’s Absolutely Breathtaking – Mic.
Then the Harbourfront Centre’s Learn to Skate program may be for you. It’s a lovely little place to skate, and you can rent everything you need. In no time you will be braving the crowds at Nathan Phillips Square and zipping around with the best of them.
If you are looking for New Year’s resolutions to make, learning to skate is a good one.
P.S. It is usually cooler down there than the rest of the city. Dress warmly.
I know a lot of people take issue with Lagerfeld, but I admire many of his ways. He has remarkable energy, creativity and longevity. Case in point, here’s Karl Lagerfeld’s Schedule in 24 Hours from Harper’s Bazaar Magazine.
Very interesting. Emulate the best, toss the rest.
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Posted in new!
There’s some great photos at the link below, but my favorite may be this one:
You can actually see the shadow of the drone on the eagle’s wing.
The rest are here: The 15 Best Drone Photos of 2014.
Comments Off on Want to see the 15 Best Drone Photos of 2014? Of course you do :)
Posted in cool
Tagged cool, drones, photography, Yahoo
Here’s three links if you are feeling stressed out and you want some guidance to help turn it around:
 | smartpeopleiknow on Trips to Uranus! Roundworms wi… |
 | Carl Setzer on Trips to Uranus! Roundworms wi… |
 | Richard Reeve on A reminder of how great WiReD… |
| smartpeopleiknow on On Cup of Jo, Paul Simon, the… |
| smartpeopleiknow on A reminder of how great WiReD… |
| Carl Setzer on A reminder of how great WiReD… |
| smartpeopleiknow on On Cup of Jo, Paul Simon, the… |
Smart People I Know 