Just from a technical point of view, these Incredible Peacocks Constructed from Beauty Supplies over at Colossal are amazing. However, they are not just technically amazing, but aesthetically quite striking, too.
Collosal has more photos showing this work. Well worth seeing.
Are here: 23 Brilliant Life Lessons From Anthony Bourdain – Airows.
Some are great, some are funny, and some seem particular to Bourdain only. Still, well worth a look.
The first one is a summary of his new show in L.A.: David Hockney unveils new works on perspective created in Los Angeles | Art and design | The Guardian.
The second one is a meaty interview: David Hockney: ‘Just because I’m cheeky, doesn’t mean I’m not serious’ | Art and design | The Guardian.
I enjoyed the interview alot: it is a great review of his career, plus it talks about many other great artists of the second part of the 20th century.
Anyone interested in modern art would enjoy both of these.
This Huffington Post article may be just the thing:
Start A Garden, No Matter How Little Space You Have. Here’s How.
I found it because I was thinking along the same lines. After you read it, you will see you have alot more options than you think.
There’s lots of great videos of PHOX on YouTube. I like this one:
If you do too, search them out and you’ll find many good ones, including on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts.
It’s rich music that is deceptively easy listening.
Comments Off on Friday night music: Phox – Noble Heart
Tagged fridaynightmusic, music, youtube
From Remodelista, here are their Our Top 10 Weekend Projects. Something there for all sorts of skills, from klutz to adept.
If you like those, check out the rest of their DIY projects.
It’s great that SpaceX has put travel posters to Mars among their other photos on flickr (SpaceX Photos | Flickr). Of the three I saw, the one above was the one I liked the best. Head over to Flickr and check out the others.
It’s fun now, but perhaps such advertisements will be less fantastical before the 22nd century.
Easy: check out BlogTO’s great list of The Best Used Bookstores in Toronto. Two of my favorites bookstores are BMV books and Ten Editions, both close to each other. I highly recommend them. Even if you know of some of them, chances are you haven’t been to them all.
Toronto has alot of great stores for new books, but if you are looking for vintage or obscure books, this list is what you need.
(Photo via a link to BlogTO)
According to Re/code, the New York Times, BuzzFeed and others have received really good terms with Facebook regarding the publishing of “Instant Articles”. For instance:
Facebook’s “Instant Articles” are designed to load, um, instantly on Facebook’s iOS app — which is the heart of Facebook’s pitch.
Facebook lets publishers use their own publishing tools, and then converts stories automatically into a format that works on Facebook’s app. There are also some cool bells and whistles, like a photo and video-panning feature Facebook imported from its all-but-forgotten Paper app. Here’s a demo video:
Facebook will let publishers keep 100 percent of the revenue they sell for “Instant Articles”; if they have unsold inventory Facebook will sell it for them via its own ad network and give publishers 70 percent of that revenue.
Facebook will give “Instant Article” publishers access to performance data on their stuff, provided by Google Analytics and Adobe’s Ominiture.
ComScore, the Web’s most important measurement company, will give “Instant Article” publishers full credit for any traffic those stories generate on Facebook’s app.
Publishers can control much of the look and feel of how Facebook presents their stories; the item BuzzFeed publishes tomorrow won’t be mistaken for National Geographic’s.
Facebook says it won’t alter its algorithm to favor “Instant Articles” over any other kind of content. But given their novelty, and the fact they’re designed to be eye-catching, it seems very likely that these things will get lots of attention at the start.
Very generous. Enticing, even.
I am keen to revisit this in a year from now, to see if Facebook has revised these terms. If Facebook treats these terms like they treat your privacy, in a year or so I expect the revised terms will not be as generous. And if some companies are not careful, they will find they let their own IT teams dwindle and they will have no choice but to stick with Facebook.
Comments Off on Facebook Publishes New York Times, BuzzFeed with “Instant Articles”. Let’s note this.
Posted in IT, nytimes.com, thoughts
Here’s the curve (X is age, Y is a measure of one’s happiness)
As you can see, it is lowest for people in their 40s, then starts to improve past that point. To understand more about that and why you need to hang in there if you are in your 40s, read this: The Real Roots of Midlife Crisis in The Atlantic.
Two additional comments:
1) If you are in your 30s, you can expect this to happen, so take stock and think about ways to prepare for it.
2) Obviously this is a large generalization. Still, there is much merit in it, I believe.
You may want to become a vegetarian or vegan but you may also be reluctant to give up eating things like bacon or fish. If you are experiencing this dilemma, then this question might appeal to you:
“The most effective question we can ask is not how can we increase the amount of vegetarians and vegans,” he says, “but rather, how can we reduce the amount of meat consumed?”
If this appeals to you, then I recommend this article: Love Bacon AND Animals? ‘Reducetarianism’ May Be For You. Still interested? Then I also recommend this book by Mark Bittman: VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good.
I remember all this, but for those of you who feel like the Web has always been with us, it’s worthwhile reading his piece, The Java Theory in The Atlantic.
He didn’t know it at the time, but everything was about to change. I enjoyed reading it, first with hindsight, and then reading it while imagining/remembering what it was like then.
Worthwhile.
With Diatom » SketchChair software, you can.
These chairs aren’t for everyone….
…but as far as cool ideas go, I think this is one of them.
Pley is a cool idea and much like Netflix is. You subscribe to the service, you get a new Lego kit. Once you build it and enjoy it for awhile, you send it back and they send you another one. Your kid always has new kits to build, and you avoid having their room fill up with Lego.
For more on this, check out: Cool Tools – Pley.
You are stressed. You decide: I need to manage it. That decision alone can help bring down your stress levels.
Your next step it to take action. If you have no idea how to do that, start here: Make stress management as routine as brushing your teeth viaThe Globe and Mail.
Teeth brushing won’t cure cavities and simple stress management techniques like these won’t cure significant problems in your life that are causing you to be stressed. But just like teeth brushing can prevent cavities, simple stress management can help alleviate some stress.
Unless you have a carefree life, these stress management techniques are worth reviewing.
Comments Off on Some simple but good advice on managing stress
Posted in advice, globeandmail.com
Tagged advice, globeandmail, selfcare, selfhelp, stress
By now you have heard of Yik Yak (or were curious enough to click through). Here are three links that can tell you more about it:
My thoughts:
Comments Off on Here comes Yik Yak: a mini primer (plus 2 or 3 — ok, 7– thoughts on it from me)
Posted in cool, IT, socialmedia
Tagged anonymity, IT, privacy, socialmedia, yikyak
If you think your Internet connection is too slow, or you just want to upgrade it, you owe it to yourself to measure how fast it is. There are a number of ways to measure it, but I like using this: Speedtest.net by Ookla – The Global Broadband Speed Test.
Record both your upload and download speed. Ideally, do it at different times of the day, and do it for both weekdays and weekends. Once you have that information, you can decide on what services would be an upgrade to this.
Also, while speed is important, the other thing to consider when you are upgrading your service is what your monthly bandwidth usage is. Your current ISP should be able to tell you that.
Can be found here: 100 Tips to Improve Your Life – 99U.
I challenge you to go through this list and not find anything here that you could apply to your own life. You will likely find at least five. If you find none, maybe your life is already perfect. 🙂
The 99U is a great source of guidance on any number of topics. I have even written some articles there.
Do you beat yourself up for starting projects but not finishing them? Do you not even try to start for fear you won’t finish? If so, I recommend this article: Why Quitting is Perfectly Okay. — So, this is life. — Medium. It’s one thing I hope you finish. Everything else is optional.
Of course, finishing them is also good. Either way, you have something to gain by starting those projects.
And hey, it’s Sunday evening at the start of May: a great time to plan your projects for the week or the month. Give it a go.
Head over here: Spoonflower: Shop, design custom fabric, wallpaper & gift wrap and you can see how you can take your own images and designs, have Spoonflower print it, and send it off to you. Very cool.
According to this, you have two very good rules of thumb or models you can use to determine this:
1) The heuristic bi-linear model. We made this by making the best bi-linear model a bit simpler to apply.
It goes:
If you’re under 85, your life expectancy is 72 minus 80% of your age.
Otherwise it’s 22 minus 20% of your age
2) The 50-15-5 model. This one asks you to remember some key values and then to interpolate between those values. It goes:
The life expectancies of 30, 70, 90 and 110 year olds are about 50, 15, 5, and 0.
For more, check out the link.
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