I love this: truly a vending machine for our times! Instead of scratch tickets that promise us fortune, these scratch tickets promise us fame! Well, if not fame, then many more social media followers. I guess that counts for fame in this day and age.
For more on this amazing vending machine go here.
P.S. Dries is a brilliant artist / technologists: check out the rest of his site, here.
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Tagged Charleston, cool, DavidByrne, parisreview
I get it: it’s Monday and you are busy. Fine. But if you need a break for any reason, then check out these 10 cool / fun /interesting / useful links:
Ok get back at it. Happy Monday!
If you want to improve your vocabulary, bookmark this link: Word of the Day from The New York Times. It’s not just any old word, either: it seems to be one that appears often in stories in the Times.
Highly recommended.
Image is by Cindy Lozito, who does all the illustrations. They are fantastic.
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Tagged cool, nytimes, vocabulary, words
What is that, you say? Let Open Culture explain:
The music collective Playing for Change is back. This time, they have Jackson Browne performing his 1970s hit, “Doctor, My Eyes,” supported by musicians from Brazil, Jamaica, India, Puerto Rico, France and beyond. Browne is also joined by Leland Sklar and Russ Kunkel, who played on the original 1972 song, and they still sound amazing.
They really do sound amazing. So many musicians I have loved have lost their voice, but Browne sounds as good as he ever did.
Don’t believe me? Here he is in 1978 doing it live:
First off is this piece, on how Lego is finally sells braille bricks. That’s great. Second is this interactive piece on the history of Lego and the various colors they use for their bricks. It’s really well done, and somewhat surprising.
Both pieces are worth a look.
While the Bitter Southerner General Store has lots of great stuff on it, I especially loved the Apparel section. I mean, how can you not love a T shirt that says “make more biscuits”? That right there is as much a commandment and a way of better living than anything I know.
On the more serious side, there is this great message:
Powerful and wise.
Finally, I think this is simple and beautiful:
Can’t you just taste that sandwich? Love it.
books.worksinprogress.co is a cool site for people who write books and people who read them. As they explain:
Books in Progress is what we call a “public drafting tool”: Drafts will be made available for comment from the public, allowing for direct collaboration between author and reader.
As a reader, you can comment on a passage from the text, or respond to another comment. The author will accept or dismiss these comments. Once the author implements comments, a new draft will be created and the current one archived. Helpful commenters will be thanked in print at the author’s discretion.
Books in Progress was developed by Works in Progress in partnership with Stewart Brand and Stripe Press.
For authors with great readers, I could see this being an invaluable tool. Drop on by the site and see for yourself.
Every so often I read something that challenges my assumptions about something common. This piece in the New York Times on hotel bars did that for me.
I long used to think poorly of such places. But reading this, I thought: yeah, hotel bars can be really great.
Read it yourself and see.
P.S. That image is one of my desktops. I find it oddly soothing.
People often seem flummoxed when they win the lottery. They wanted to win, and now that they have, they don’t know what to do with their winnings. I get it. I’ll confess that I’ve thought about it before and I was flummoxed too.
Well that was then. Now I know the first major thing I would buy. It would be this baby: the 1989 Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet (shown above).
I remember coveting that car when I was younger. And for under $200k, it’s a deal. 🙂
Any day you buy a lottery ticket is a day you could walk away rich. Be prepared!
What do you get when you pair a Blackberry-like device with a Raspberry Pi?? You get the Beepberry Pocket Computer!
I mean I just love the thing! Do I know anything practical I can do with it? No. Does that mean I shouldn’t lust after it? Also no. 🙂
The brains behind it is the same as that behind the Pebble watch, which was a great device IMHO. I suspect this is as well.
I’m not a watch guy, but Timex’s Reclaimed Ocean Plastic watch (above) got my attention. According to uncrate.com:
Its lightweight 40 mm case is made from upcycled, ocean-bound plastic collected from the coastlines by fishermen. The waste is then washed, shredded, and shipped to Switzerland on carbon-neutral transportation, where it’s repurposed. The material gives the piece a speckled texture and is complemented by a matte black dial with contrasting white handers and numerals.
Given that “at least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year”, this sounds like a smart use of materials by Timex.
If you want something more classic, here’s a story on the Hamilton eatch featured in the latest Indiana Jones film. I had one like it: it’s a fine timepiece.
Finally, if you are an Apple Watch owner like myself and want to go with an aeronautic theme, consider the MobyFox NASA Apple watch bands, seen below:
The map above looks much better if you go to the site that has it fullscale: night train map.
I love the design of the map. I love the idea of taking night trains around Europe. I even love that you can get a poster of it. I love it.
Go check it out.
Fans of Teenage Engineering and their designs might be interested in their new CM-15 microphone seen in the photo above. Is it expensive? Yes. Is it cool and well designed? Also yes.
These two links from Uncrate and design-milk have more details on it. Audiophiles will especially want to take a look.
I just love all the things they make, and wish I were musical enough to really appreciate them.
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Tagged audio, cool, design, designmilk, microphone, teenageengineering, uncrate
I can write what the Open Infrastructure Map is by using the words of its creator:
Open Infrastructure Map is a view of the world’s infrastructure mapped in the OpenStreetMap database. This data isn’t exposed on the default OSM map, so I built Open Infrastructure Map to visualise it.
But the best thing to do is tell you to head over to it and zoom in on areas you know. Being from Cape Breton, I did just that, and I was wonderfully surprised by how much detail was there. I think you will feel the same.
Highly recommended.
Apparently, there are two French versions of the Simpsons: one for France, and one for Quebec. This is great for two reasons, I think, as this piece explains: The French version of the Simpsons is oddly fascinating | indy100 | indy100:
Brilliant/brillant!
It’s an intriguing idea.
If you are not familiar with the idea, let me explain with this quote pinched from one of the links below: “Victory gardens are gardens grown by civilians during times of widespread food insecurity. The gardens were encouraged by the Canadian government during the world wars, as a way to feed both civilians and troops.”
In time of high inflation brought on to some degree by the pandemic, such a garden might help in several ways. But heck, if you want to stick with growing flowers to lift your spirits, that’s ok by me too.
For more on this, see these two pieces over at CBC.ca: How you can start your own ‘victory garden’. Also: It’s not too late to grow vegetables for your victory garden.
If you need more help on growing your own seedlings, check out that piece at Lifehacker.
Onward to victory over the pandemic, and inflation, and more!
I had been thinking about the Pennsylvania hotel recently. I first started thinking about it when I read this: Discovering another vintage two-letter phone exchange on a West Side sign. See the bottom? Things like MU 2-2655 were how phone numbers looked in the Big Apple (and other places too). Forget about area codes like 212.
One of the most famous of these old two letter phone exchanges was PEnnsylvania_6-5000 (PE 6-5000) for two reasons. One, it was the number assigned to one place and one place only: the Pennsylvania hotel. Two, Glenn Miller wrote a famous song about it, called…PEnnsylvania_6-5000. (My Dad loved this song, and whenever I hear the title, I can hear him shouting out with the band: PEnnsylvania 6-5000!).
Sadly, having a storied presence as well as being famous is not enough to survive. The Times has a piece on how its going to be demolished soon. That’s a shame. I hope the don’t regret it like they do the demolition of Penn Station.
As you can see from the photo being held, it was a massive hotel, and one deserving of its own exchange.
I highly recommend you read that piece on it in the Times. It had quite the run.
Now let’s join in with the the Muppets as they do their version of the famous song:
I love this: Ikea and Marimekko have teamed up to create a collection of home goods at affordable prices that are also beautiful. They range in prices from this low cost bag at $2:
To this lovely side table with a tray for $79:
They even have clothing, like this robe for $40:
Amazing. Over at Chatelaine they have their 15 favorite from The Ikea Marimekko Bastua Collection. The three seen here were plucked from their list. Go to Chatelaine for more. Go check it out.
Once upon a time, web sites were simple. Now they are complicated and sometimes bloated. Just go to the web site of news organizations like CNN or the New York Times and you will know what I mean.
But there is a way to avoid that. Just go to the light/lite versions of their web sites. This is lite CNN. This is a lighter New York Times (TimesWire) And here is an aggregator site that does something similar for a number of topics, like tech: The Brutalist Report – tech.
If you want to find more sites like that, check out: A List Of Text-Only & Minimalist News Sites at GreyCoder.
Kudos to companies that build lightweight versions of their web sites. Not everyone has high speed Internet connectivity. And not everyone needs lots and lots of information. Keeping it simple is cool.
(The title is an extract of the original title for the computer magazine, Dr. Dobbs Journal. It’s original title was: dr. dobb’s journal of Tiny BASIC Calisthenics & Orthodontia (with the subtitle Running Light Without Overbyte))
I’ve been a fan of David Byrne and Talking Heads for many a years and have written about them often. (See those links.) And I am writing about them again, because according to Pitchfork, the “1984 concert film, Stop Making Sense, is going to get restored in 4K and re-released theatrically by A24”. Not only that, but “a deluxe edition of the Stop Making Sense soundtrack will come out on vinyl and digitally on August 18.” This got me very excited!
When I was younger, I would love to wander up to the Bloor Cinema in Toronto and watch Stop Making Sense. As a rep movie theatre, it would often play it on the weekend. Even when the Bloor was renovated and turned into the HotDocs theatre, it still plays the film from time to time. And I still love to go see it. I’ve lost track of how many dozens of times I’ve enjoyed it. And now you and I can soon enjoy it in 4K! Woo!
P.S. For people who don’t know of the film, see this: Stop Making Sense .
Here’s the YouTube trailer for the re release…it’s great:
I love that the music for it is Naive Melody…my favorite song in the film.
Comments Off on Who’s excited about the restored 4K version of Stop Making Sense?! This guy!!
Posted in cool
Tagged 1980s, 80s, a24, cool, DavidByrne, music, talkingheads
As someone who developed a love of indoor plants over the pandemic, I have to say I was blown away by the biOrb Air 60 Terrarium. Sure, it’s pricey, and even a little big, but for anyone who has a few bucks and some space, it could be a cool addition to your home.
Check out that link to Design Milk and get more details on it. It’s cool.
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Tagged cool, decor, designmilk, plants
A reminder of how great WiReD magazine was — and how often it was wrong — can be found in this fine piece by Dave Karpf: A WIRED compendium.
I bought the first copy of WiReD when it came out, and was a buyer and collector for some time. It was everything I loved in a magazine: smart and stylish and full of ideas.
WiReD was a perfect title for it too. The publication was about how the world was becoming interconnected through the rapid build out of the Internet, but it was also about how our brains were changing as a result of it. It covered both of those areas well.
Dave’s piece also covers some of my favorite things it got wrong, from the promise of PUSH technology (companies HATED Pointcast for flooding their networks and soon worked to shut that it down) to digitally encoded smell (right?? yeah, no) to a cover on how Second Life was the future (hey, I thought that too).
WiReD got plenty right, too. But more than right or wrong, it captured the zeitgeist of the 90s and early 2000s and generally provided insights into how information technology was affecting us.
If you have only read the magazine recently, you might not get what the fuss was all about regarding it. Check out that summary from Dave Karpf: you will get a history lesson and hopefully a glimpse of WiReD and why it was so great.
(For more on it, I also recommend Wikipedia)
It exists:
Standing 20 stories tall, The Wood Hotel is the world’s tallest hotel mainly made from wood. Located at the birthplace of cross-country skiing, Skellefteå in Swedish Lapland, the 205-room property was built from locally harvested spruce and pine which smells awesome and absorbs more CO2 than it uses.
Now that’s cool. Would love to stay there. Would love to see more tall buildings built this way.
For more on it, see this: This 20-Story Hotel in Sweden Is Made Almost Entirely from Wood
Comments Off on What is cool? How about this 20-Story Hotel in Sweden Is Made Almost Entirely from Wood?
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Tagged building, cool, environment, sustainable, Sweden, wood
If you love the work of Philippe Starck as much as I, then I recommend you head over to Uncreate and search on his name (or click here). It turns out he’s still doing cool stuff. Not surprising.
For example, this is cool: B&B Italia x Philippe Starck Outdoor Sofa. It reminds me of the great furniture he did for hotels like the Royalton in the 80s:
And this LaCie Blade Runner Hard Drive reminded me of how at the names of his older furniture often were borrowed from Philip K. Dick novels:
Love it! I wish I could find one of those hard drives. They look awesome.
Speaking of awesome looking, check out this, the Aeklys by Starck Payment Ring:
Finally these Phillippe Starck Log Knives are very gift worthy:
Nice to see one of my favorite designers is still creative, and creative in many different ways.
So I came across this section of New York magazine called The Strategist which asks people: what can’t you live without? They wonder “what famous people add to their carts. Not the JAR brooch and Louis XV chair but the hair spray and the electric toothbrush.” I enjoyed this one in particular on Rhiannon Giddens Favorite Things, but it also got me thinking: what can’t I live without? If I lost everything and was told by insurers to go out and replace things, what are the things I really miss that I would go out a get right away? That led me to come up with this list. It’s not my answers to the Proust Questionnaire, but it was much fun to do and equally revealing. Here goes:
Roots leather goods. I’ve bought a number of Roots leather goods over the decades and they truly last a lifetime. I have a tan leather jacket that just gets better year after year and a weekender bag like the one below which is perfect for short trips. Get something classic from Roots and it will serve you for life.
Large Banff Bag Cervino | Roots US – $598 US
New Balance Shoes. For a long time I’ve been a fan of New Balance for running. Great shoe maker, I thought, but typically not very fashionable. I changed my mind when I saw the 327 models shown: a great shoe that’s also very stylish. I have them in Black on Black and they’re great, but New Balance has a wide selection of color combos. Perfect for being out and about.
Apple Products. I really can’t live without my Macbook, my iPhone, or my Apple Watch. I am inseparable from them, literally. I’d still have a Shuffle too if Apple still made them. I’m fortunate enough to get a Macbook Air and an iPhone 11 from work, but I would get them again even if I did not. To go with that I have the Apple Watch Series 8: the health features alone make it great. Like Roots or New Balance, there is not just ONE product from this company I rely on: there are MANY.
Apple Watch Series 8 – Apple (CA) – $529 CAN
IKEA French Press Coffee Maker: I love this thing. I have a small one that makes me my afternoon coffee and it’s the perfect thing to get me through my day. I will generally use a drip coffee maker in the morning to make a large pot of coffee, but this makes a better cup of coffee, I believe. Maybe I need two of them.
Pro tip: get a small wooden spoon with a flat end on an angle if you can: it makes cleanup super easy. Another tip: IKEA sells coffee for the press and I think it’s pretty good.
UPPHETTA French press coffee maker – $14.99 US
Lodge Cast Iron: recently I got over my hang up with cast iron and started cooking with again. I am so glad I did: food just comes out better in cast iron, I think. And taking care of it is less trouble than I thought. I am a fan of Lodge cast iron in particular and I have a number of their pieces, including this skillet with the hot handle holder (the holder is very useful – trust me).
12 Inch Cast Iron Skillet with Handle Holder – $29.95 US
J. Stark Bags and travel cases: I love my Roots weekender bag. When I am travelling, I’ll fill it with travel bags from J Stark. Plus I’ll use their Sentinel backpack and store it under my seat with all my valuables. Not only is it great for travel, but I can use it once I get on the ground. (Not to mention using it when I return.) I love the quality of their goods: plus the people that run it are really fine people. If you can get to Charleston, drop by. Meanwhile, visit their site to see what they have to offer (a lot!).
Sentinel Backpack in Navy Heavyweight Canvas – $195 US
Grado SR80x Prestige Series Headphones: I have not stopped using Grados since I bought my first pair of 60s many years ago. I’ve tried more expensive ones, but as someone who uses them mostly with an iPhone (and formerly an iTouch), the 80s are the ones I find suit me best. In Canada you can get them at Bay Bloor radio and other fine places.
Grado SR80x Prestige Series Headphones – $189 CAN
Pilot v-pen Fountain pen: I love pens. Pens of all sorts. However when it comes to writing cards or notes or even cheques, I am a huge fan of these disposable fountain pens from Pilot. Sure, they aren’t Mont Blanc, but you can get 10 for just under $18 at Amazon! I also have found very few problems with leaking, and I also find they work better than cheap fountain pens elsewhere. I usually get mine at Deserres because I like to support local art stores, but you can find them everywhere.
V-Pen – Fountain pen – $2-4 US, depending on where you get them.
Muji Notebooks: I use Muji notebooks to go with my Pilot Pens. I have them in all shapes and sizes, but this particular one shown I love. I get one out every work day and write down whatever I need to capture quickly and focus on. But honestly they have a notebook for every use.
Double Ringed Plain Notebook – $2.90 US
The Lenovo Smart Clock with Google Assistant: I depend upon Google Assistant more than I care to say. And while Google has their own devices, if I had to have only one such device, I would pick this one. I have one near me at all times when I work at home: it’s a one stop shop for quick information and tasks.
Lenovo Smart Clock – $79 US.
I am sure if I sat her more I could come up with more items and even services. There’s many things I have that I can’t do without, but I would be worse off without the things on this list.
What things are on your list?
The great Lisa has just turned 40! Apple’s Lisa, that is. To celebrate, the Computer History Museum (CHM) has done two great things. First, they have released the source code to the Lisa software. You can find it here. Second, they have published this extensive history on the ground breaking machine, The Lisa: Apple’s Most Influential Failure.
Like the NeXT computer, the Lisa computer was a machine that tried to do too much too soon. And while it was not the success that Apple had hoped, it did lead to great success later. That definitely comes across in that CHM piece.
It’s fascinating to compare the picture above with the one below (both from CHM). In the one above you can see the original Lisa (1) with “Twiggy” floppy drive that was unreliable and ditched in the later models, seen below. You can also see how the machine on the left (the original Macintosh) would come to take over from the machine on the right (the Lisa 2). It has many of the same features but at a much reduced price.
When you think of Apple computers, you likely think of one of more of those found in this List of Macintosh models. While not a Mac, the Lisa was the precursor of all those machines that came later, starting with the original Mac. It was the birth of a new form of personal computing.
Happy birthday, Lisa! You deserve to be celebrated.
For more on this, see this Hackday piece on Open-Sourcing The Lisa Mac’s Bigger Sister.
If you feel stuck, just a small change in your environment can make a difference in freeing you up mentally. Changing your desktop wallpaper is just such a change.
If you agree, I recommend you go to Design Milk and see what they have to offer in wallpapers. Each month they have a designer publish a new image for you to download and out upon your background. Needless to say, they are very well done.
Maybe new wallpaper won’t inspire you to do great things in 2023. But it can’t hurt! Give it a shot.
I walked along Queen West and West Queen West recently. The bones of the neighborhood that I first walked around in the 80s remain. Places like The Queen Mother, Peter Pan, the Rex, and the Horseshoe are still going strong. The Rivoli is there too, if anything fancier than ever. Same for Cameron House. It was comforting to see them all, like old friends at a reunion.
Of course many other places have long gone. The Bamboo Club for instance. It’s location is occupied with some other business, though what occupies it is not as great as it was. Also long gone is Pages. It was a must visit on those trips to Queen West long ago. Now nothing exists in its former spot, just a vacant store.
I don’t want to weep and wail too much about changes to Queen West of my youth. People have been complaining about the its transformation “into the brand-saturated retail corridor it is today” since at least 2010, if not earlier. I do want to note something ironic though. The same brands that transformed Queen West, brands like “The Gap, GUESS, Le Chateau, RYU, EB Games, NYX, several major fast food joints” have all left in the past five years because of rent. Perhaps in five more years it will just be banks and dentists offices there.
As for me, I prefer West Queen West to Queen West now. I’m happiest taking a streetcar past Bathurst and heading over to Type Books, the Spice Trader, Cocktail Emporium, the Swan and Trinity Bellwoods Park. When you combine that strip with Ossington and parts of Dundas West, you really have some of the best of Toronto, I think, and the places I most frequent lately.
Queen West will always be a destination for many and I will no doubt head there from time to time. But there are so many other great places to head to, even on Queen, and that’s great too.
P.S. The quotes above were from this piece on the closing of H&M on Queen West. The photo of the Queen Mother is from that piece, which is a good review of the place and its history. Also a good review is the Wikipedia entry for Queen West, which includes the entire street, but has a special section on Queen West.
Finally, here’s a great snapshot of Queen West in 1986, as captured in this video of the song “I’m an Adult Now” by The Pursuit of Happiness. Needless to say, it’s a very different street!
For some households, there is this debate: white lights or colored lights on a Christmas tree? Well, with the Philips Festavia lighting from Hue, you can have both! And so much more. To see what I mean, see this piece in The Verge.
I am a big fan of Philips Hue lighting. I bought a wide assortment of bulbs over 5 years ago and I use them daily and they are still going strong. So while these lights ain’t cheap, they may last you a long time. And give you much joy for years to come.
My favorite film, Blade Runner, is 40! You’ll want to scan this good piece in Esquire on why it is “is still the greatest Sci-Fi of all-time”. Need more Blade Runner essays? Here’s this piece on the eyes and how they are a recurrent thematic element in the films of Blade Runner… worth a look. (All puns intended.)
For fans like me, check out the Walking Tour of the Blade Runner Locations in LA. Plenty to see there. 🙂
I think going to Mars is a terrible idea, but if you are the opposite of me and would love to experience that, I have a suggestion for you. You can get the experience of going there today by going to…Iceland. NPR explains:
Iceland is like Mars — if the Red Planet had hot tubs. That’s the cheeky idea behind a new pitch from Iceland’s tourism board, which says people don’t need a spaceship to see otherworldly sights like red rocks, black sand and subglacial volcanoes. Plus, they note, oxygen is abundant in Iceland. To drive home the message, they launched a promo video and a space billboard with the tagline, “Iceland. Better than space.”
See? All you need is a plane ticket and a place to stay and you can go to Mars next week. If you think the tourism people are just making stuff up, listen to NASA. NPR again:
NASA agrees: the agency has repeatedly used Iceland as a stand-in for the Moon, and it’s doing so again as it prepares astronauts for new missions off-world. “Iceland is an amazing analog for both the Moon and Mars,” says NASA’s Kelsey Young, who researches the exploration of planetary surfaces and who has done geologic fieldwork in Iceland.
For more on this, see the NPR article, here: Iceland says it’s better than space. We asked NASA about that.
My friend Jared Bramblett was recently in London, and as he does, he took some fantastic photographs of his visit, which you can see here: 5 Days in London – Jared Bramblett.
Once you check that out — and you should — take some time to look at the rest of his site. It’s wonderful.
(Image: link to image on his site.It looks so much better on his site.)
Woo! It’s Friday! If you are American, then there is a good chance you are participating in Thanksgiving activities! May your days be joyous and your feast plentiful. As for me, I’m in Canada, where we celebrated our Thanksgiving weeks ago. I suspect I will be gearing up like many Canadians for that other festive time that is coming soon: Christmas.
Speaking of feasts, here’s a cornucopia of things for you to check out and enjoy as you head into the weekend.
How cool is this Balmuda speaker? I just love it. Move over Sonos! (JK I love my Sonos One speaker too.)
Also cool: this public bench. I wish my city had such great places to sit.
This artwork by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (below) is stunning. Plus it is related to your pulse. Intriguing, yes?
Speaking of stunning, check out these bold black houses. I just love to look at them and to imagine staying in them.
As for imagining things, how great it would be to take some time and do this 750-Mile Bicycle Route from New York. That’s a good bucket list item.
Or perhaps that’s too much effort. In which case, why not daydream about climbing on board The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express for one of their Winter Journeys? That sounds fabulous.
If you can’t afford that, then maybe you just want to stay at home and have a low key meal tonight. I recommend you look into what Austin Kleon does every Friday. He has these Pizza night blockbusters with his family that you might want to try (this link even has his wife’s pizza recipe). It’s a great idea and the pizzas look delicious.
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Or maybe you can’t even decide what to eat. Kavall, a Swedish grocery delivery company, understands. See that button? You press it and they will randomly selects a recipe and have the ingredients delivered by bike in around 10 minutes. Amazing! You can read more about it here!
Want to impress your kids after dinner? Show them the metal rig Jelle Seegers built with a handmade fresnel lens on top that can concentrate solar rays tightly enough to smelt metal. You can see it, here. It will blow their mind.
Or show them this small paper microscope that works!
But don’t show them this McDonald’s gaming chair because they might want one! Unless you too like it…I dunno. 🙂
I have written often on cat furniture. Perhaps too much. But I can resist sharing this one called Igloo that is a side table that also gives your cat a cozy home.
Have fun on the last Friday of November! This year is flying by. Have a great weekend.
i
Alan Rickman’s diaries have been published. You can see excerpts from them here. What I thought was cool was how he not just wrote a journal, but he wonderfully illustrated it.
Also cool is this cassette shaped white noise machine (shown above).
To me, Blade Runner is cool and more Blade Runner is also cool. So I was pleased to see that there will be an new TV show of it coming to Amazon Prime..
Libraries of course are cool. So to is the Libby App, which gives you free ebooks & audiobooks from your library.
Finally, here’s a cool story of how a British writer rediscovered what it means to be European by train. Train travel is the coolest.
A lot has changed with European Royalty since this (colorized) photo of Nine Kings was taken in 1910 at the funeral of Edward VII. For one thing, many of these monarchies these Kings represented have disappeared. And of the ones remaining, they are slimming down quite a bit, such as the one in Denmark, with Denmark’s Queen Margrethe stripping 4 grandchildren of their royal title. Harsh but fair if the monarchies are to survive. And it’s not just happening in Denmark: Charles is likely to do it in England, too. Monarchy ain’t what it used to be.
Perhaps that’s why we look back in history with series like the Crown. The success of which has lead to this German Royal Drama about the heads of Austria-Hungary coming out next. The farther we go back, the grander it all seems.
Speaking of grand and wanting to go back in time, here’s a good piece on King Charles’s Poundbury Town. Going forward in time, this AI portrays how famous people like Princess Diana would look like today.
That’s the thing about Royalty. In many ways it is about a life other than the one most of us lead. There’s an unrealness about it that somehow attracts us.
In closing, I want to include a clip of one of the most real people in The Crown, Tommy Lascelles. No one is more grounded than him, which makes him highly effective and often dangerous:
P.S. I am fascinated by that photo of the nine kings. Here’s a good post with lots more detail: Nine Kings in one photo 1910.
First up, this may be the only Leica camera most can afford, and then it is still around $1700: Leica D-Lux 7 Vans x Ray Barbee Camera.
To see what I mean, check out the Leica M-A Titan Camera… it costs around $20,000. And while that is extreme, it is closer to the median than the d-Lux 7.
Maybe you need this Pixy Selfie Drone to follow you around and take selfies all day. Your own paparazzi!
Or perhaps you just want a new webcam. This one, Opal C1 Webcam | Uncrate, will set you back around $300.
Thanks to Uncrate.com for all these. Still one of my favourite sites for all things cool and wonderful.
The smart folks at Teenage Engineering have produced another cool product. As Yanko Design explains….
The PO-80 Record Factory Kit is a record cutter that engraves audio onto 5″ vinyl discs, giving kids the ability to record their own LPs the old-fashioned way, quite like how millennials made mixtapes and burned their own CDs. The Record Factory, created in collaboration with Yuri Suzuki, lets you engrave and playback 5″ discs with an ultra-analog lo-fi sound. This isn’t studio-grade equipment, after all, but it does add a creamy muffled, effect to your audio that totally sounds like the 40s and 50s in a nutshell.
Love it! For more on the PO-80, see these write ups in Yanko Design and the Awesomer.com.
(Image link to Yanko Design)
Seriously, how cute is this??
The paper looks like rain! It’s awesome! Thank you, Muji!
For more on it, see: Muji cloud is a fun tool to condense paper into small pile of shreds – Yanko Design
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